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THE 



PHILOSOPHY 



ACTIVE AND MORAL POWERS OF MAN. 



BY 



DUGALD STEWART, F. R.SS.Lond. and Ed. 



REVISED, WITH OMISSIONS AND ADDITIONS, 

By JAMES WALKER.D.D, 

PR0FE6SOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD COLLH0& 



K i it t \) B & i t c o it . 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO 

1866. 



Pa 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 

John Bartlett, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Exchange 
Univ. of Mich. 
AUG 8 - 1933 






PREFACE 

BY THE EDITOR. 



Sir James Mackintosh has said of Mr. Stewart, — " Per- 
haps few men ever lived, who poured into the breasts of 
youth a more fervid, and yet reasonable, love of liberty, of 
truth, and of virtue. How many are still alive, in different 
countries, and in every rank to which education reaches, 
who, if they accurately examined their own minds and lives, 
would ascribe much of whatever goodness and happiness they 
possess to the early impressions of his gentle and persuasive 
eloquence ! " 

The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man 
was the last of his publications ; it came from the press in 
the spring of 1828, a few weeks before the author's death. 
An unfriendly and severe critic in the Penny Cyclopccdia ad- 
mits, in respect to this treatise, that it is " by far the least 
exceptionable of his works. It is more systematic, and con- 
tains more new truths, than any of his metaphysical writ- 
ings; and his long acquaintance with the world and with let- 
ters enabled him to suggest many obvious but overlooked 
analyses." Only two editions of it have appeared in this 
countiy, — one separately in 1828, the other in a collection 



IV PREFACE. 

of his works in the following year; the former has long been 
out of print. 

The author begins his Preface by apologizing for " the 
large and perhaps disproportionate space " allotted by him to 
the evidence and doctrines of natural religion. This part, 
making nearly one third of the whole, has been omitted in 
the present edition, as being out of place here, however ex- 
cellent in itself. Other retrenchments have also been made 
in respect to unimportant details, in order to find room, with- 
out transgressing the prescribed limits, for some additional 
notes and illustrations. The latter, which are indicated by 
brackets, or otherwise, as they occur, consist almost exclusive- 
ly of extracts from living or late writers, or references to 
them, and are inserted with a view to mark whatever prog- 
ress has been made or attempted in ethical speculation since 
Mr. Stewart's day. 

Some changes have been made in the distribution and num- 
bering of the chapters and sections, and sub-sections have 
been introduced for the first time. The use of the latter in 
giving a more distinct impression of the successive steps in 
the argument or exposition, no practised teacher will fail to 
appreciate. The Latin and Greek citations in the text are 
translated in the present edition, where this had not been done 
by the author. The translations are taken, for the most part, 
from common sources, without particular acknowledgment, 
the only object being to fit the work for more general and 
convenient use as a text-book. 

Cambridge, August 16, 1849. 



CONTENTS. 



PA OB, 

Introduction, 1 



BOOK I. 

OF OUR INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF OUR APPETITES, .... 11 



CHAPTER II. 

OF OUR DESIRES,. - . 16 

Sect. I. The Desire of Knowledge, 16 

II. The Desire of Society, 20 

III. The Desire of Esteem, 28 

IV. The Desire of Power, 44 

V. Emulation, or the Desire of Supeyiority, ... 49 



CHAPTER III. 

OF OUR AFFECTIONS. 

Sect. I. General Observations, 56 

II. Of the Affections of Kindred, 61 

III. Of Friendship, 66 

IV. Of Patriotism, 70 

V. Of Pity to the Distressed, 80 



VI CONTENTS. 

VI. Of Resentment, and the various other Angry Affections 
grafted upon it, commonly considered by Ethical Writ- 
ers as Malevolent Affections, 91 



BOOK II. 

OF OUR RATIONAL AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES OP 
ACTION. 

.CHAPTER I. 

OP A PRUDENTIAL REGARD TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS, OR 
WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED BY MORALISTS THE 
PRINCIPLE OF SELF-LOVE, 102 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE MORAL FACULTY. 

Sect. I. The Moral Faculty not resolvable into Self-Love, . .115 
II. Examination of Hartley's Theory of the Formation of the 

Moral Sense by Association alone, . . . . 125 

III. The Moral Constitution of Human Nature not disproved by 

the Diversity in Men's Moral Judgments, . . . 131 

IV. Licentious Systems of Morals, 154 

Appendix to Chapter H. 
Bentham and his Followers, . .171 

CHAPTER III. 

ANALYSIS OF OUR MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS, 188 

Sect. I. Of the Perception of Right and Wrong, . ... 193 
II. Of the Agreeable and Disagreeable Emotions arising from 

the Perception of what is Right and Wrong in Conduct, . 217 
HI. Of the Perception of Merit and Demerit, . . . 228 



CONTENTS. Vii 

CHAPTER IV. 

OF MORAL OBLIGATION, . . 233 

CHAPTER V. 

OF CERTAIN PRINCIPLES WHICH COOPERATE WITH OUR 
MORAL POWERS IN THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE CON- 
DUCT, 243 

Sect. I. Of Decency, or a Regard to Character, .... 244 

II. Of Sympathy, .245 

III. Of the Sense of the Ridiculous, 261 

IV. Of Taste, considered in its Relation to Morals, . . 264 

CHAPTER VI. 

OF MAN'S FREE AGENCY. 

Sect. I. Preliminary Observations, 268 

II. Review of the Argument for Necessity, .... 274 
IH. Is the Evidence of Consciousness in Favor of the Scheme of 

Free Will, or of that of Necessity? 300 

IV. Of the Schemes of Free Will, and of Necessity, considered as 

influencing Practice, 309 

V. On the Argument for Necessity drawn from the Prescience 

of the Deity, 316 



BOOK III. 

OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF OUR DUTY. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT THE DEITY, . 325 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OUR FELLOW- 
CREATURES, 335 

Sect. I. Of Benevolence, 335 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

II. Of Justice, 352 

III. Of the Right of Property, .... . 363 

IV. Of Veracity, 376 

CHAPTER III. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OURSELVES, . 383 

Sect. I. Of the Duty of employing the Means we possess to secure 

our own Happiness, 385 

II. Of the Different Theories of Happiness, . . . .387 

III. Means of promoting and securing Happiness, . . . 399 



BOOK IV. 

OF THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF THE GENERAL DEFINITION OF VIRTUE, ... 424 

CHAPTER II. 

ON AN AMBIGUITY IN THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG, 
VIRTUE AND VICE, 428 

CHAPTER III. 

OF THE OFFICE AND USE OF REASON IN THE PRACTICE 
OF MORALITY, 431 

APPENDIX TO BOOK IV. 

Sect. I. Sir James Mackintosh's Theory of Morals, . . . 436 
H. Jouffroy's Theory of Morals, 449 



THE 



PHILOSOPHY 



ACTIVE AND MORAL POWERS OF MAN 



INTRODUCTION. 



1. Connection between the Intellectual and the Active 
Poivers.] In my former work on the Human Mind I 
confined my attention almost exclusively to man con- 
sidered as an intellectual being' ; and attempted an anal- 
ysis of those faculties and powers which compose that 
part of his nature commonly called his intellect or his 
understanding. It is by these faculties that he acquires 
his knowledge of external objects; that he investigates 
truth in the sciences ; that he combines means in order 
to attain the ends he has in view ; and that he imparts 
to his fellow-creatures the acquisitions he has made. 
A being might, I think, be conceived, possessed of 
these principles, without any of the active propensities 
belonging to our species, at least without any of them 
but the principle of curiosity; — a being formed only 
for speculation, without any determination to the pur- 
suit of particular external objects, and whose whole 
happiness consisted in intellectual gratifications. 

But, although such a being might perhaps be con- 
ceived to exist, and although, in studying our internal 
frame, it be convenient to treat of our intellectual pow- 
ers apart from our active propensities, yet, in fact, the 
two are very intimately, and indeed inseparably, con- 
1 



« INTRODUCTION. 

nected in all our mental operations. I have already 
hinted, that, even in our speculative inquiries, the prin- 
ciple of curiosity is nece&sary to account for the exer- 
tion we make ; and it is still more obvious, that a com- 
bination of means to accomplish particular ends pre- 
supposes some determination of our nature which 
makes the attainment of these ends desirable. Our 
active propensities, therefore, are the motives which in- 
duce us to exert our intellectual powers; and our intel- 
lectual powers are the instruments by which we attain 
the ends recommended to us by our active propen- 
sities : — 

" Reason the card, but passion is the gale." 

It will afterwards appear, that our active propensities 
are not only necessary to produce our intellectual exer- 
tions, but that the state of the intellectual powers, in 
the case of individuals, depends, in a great measure, on 
the strength of their propensities, and on the particular 
propensities which are predominant in the temper of 
their minds. A man of strong philosophical curiosity 
is likely to possess a much more cultivated and inven 
tive understanding than another of equal natural capa- 
city, destitute of the same stimulus. In like manner, 
the love of fame, or a strong sense of duty, may com- 
pensate for original defects, or may lay the foundation 
of uncommon attainments. The intellectual powers, 
too, may be variously modified by the habits arising 
from avarice, from the animal appetites, from ambition, 
or from the benevolent affections ; insomuch that the 
moral principles of the miser, of the elegant voluptua- 
ry, of the political intriguer, and of the philanthropist 
are not, perhaps, more dissimilar than the acquired ca- 
pacities of their understandings, and the species of in- 
formation with which their memories are stored. Among 
the various external indications of character, few cir- 
cumstances will be found to throw more light on the 
ruling passions of individuals than the habitual direc- 
tion of their studies, and the nature of those accom* 
plishments which they have been ambitious to attain. 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

When Montaigne complains of " the difficulty he ex- 
perienced in remembering the names of his servants • 
of his ignorance of the value of the French coins 
which he was daily handling; and of his inability to 
distinguish the different kinds of grain from each other, 
both in the earth and in the granary " ; * his observa- 
tions, instead of proving the point which he supposed 
them to establish (an original and incurable defect in 
his faculty of memory), only afford an illustration of 
the little interest he took in things external, and of 
the preternatural and distempered engrossment of his 
thoughts with the phenomena of the internal world. 
To this peculiarity in his turn of mind he had himself 
alluded, when he says, " I study myself more than any 
other subject. This is my metaphysic ; this my natu- 
ral philosophy." A person well acquainted with the 
peculiarities of Montaigne's memory might, I think, on 
comparing them with the general superiority of his 
mental powers, have anticipated him in this specifica- 
tion of the study which almost exclusively occupied his 
attention.! 

Helvetius in his book De VEsprit (a work which, 
among many paradoxical and some very pernicious 
opinions, contains a number of acute and lively obser- 
vations) has prosecuted, with considerable success, this 
last view of human nature, and has collected a variety 
of amusing facts to illustrate the influence of the pas- 
sions on the intellectual powers. " It is the passions," 
he observes, " that rouse the soul from its natural ten- 



* Montaigne's Essays, Book II. Chap. xvii. 

f The following remarks of the learned and ingenious Dr. Jortin are 
not unworthy of the attention of those whose taste leads them to the ob- 
servation and study of character. 

"From the complexion of those anecdotes which a man collects from 
others, or which he forms by his own pen, may, without much difficulty, 
be conjectured what manner of man he was. 

" The human being is mightily given to assimilation, and, from the sto- 
ries which any one relates with spirit, from the general tenor of his conver- 
sation, and from the books or associates to which he most addicts his at- 
tention, the inference cannot be far distant as to the texture of his mind, 
the vein of his wit, or, we may add, the ruling passion of his heart."— ■ 
Jortin's Tracts, Vol. I. p. 445. 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

doncy to rest, and surmount the vis inertim to which it 
is always inclined to yieJd ; and it is the strong pas- 
sions alone that prompt men to the execution of those 
heroic actions, and give birth to those sublime ideas, 
which command the admiration of ages. 

" It is the strength of passion alone that can enable 
men to defy dangers, pain, and death. 

" It is the passions, too, which, by keeping up a per- 
petual fermentation in our minds, fertilize the same 
ideas, which, in more phlegmatic temperaments, are 
barren, and resemble seed scattered on a rock. 

" It is the passions which, having strongly fixed our 
attention on the object of our desire, lead us to view it 
under aspects unknown to other men; and which, con- 
sequently, prompt heroes to plan and execute those 
hardy enterprises which must always appear ridiculous 
to the multitude till the sagacity of their authors has 
been evinced by success." * 

To this passage, which is, I think, just in the main, I 
have only to object, that, in consequence of the ambi- 
guity of the word passion^ it is apt to suggest an errone- 
ous idea of the author's meaning. It is plain that he 
uses it to denote our active principles in general ; and, 
in this sense, there can be no doubt that his doctrine is 
well founded ; inasmuch as, without such principles 
as curiosity, the love of fame, ambition, avarice, or the 
love of mankind, our intellectual capacities would for 
ever remain sterile and useless. But it is not in this 
sense that the word passion is most commonly em- 
ployed. In its ordinary acceptation it denotes those 
animal impulses which, although they may sometimes 
prompt to intellectual exertion, are certainly on the 
whole unfavorable to intellectual improvement. Helve- 
tius himself has not always attended to this ambiguity 
of language ; and hence may be traced many of the 
paradoxes and errors of his philosophy. 

To these slight remarks it may not be useless to 
subjoin an observation of La Rochefoucauld, which is 

* De V Esprit, Discours III. Chap. vi. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

equally refined and just; and which, in its practical 
tendency, calls the attention to a source of danger in a 
quarter where it is too seldom apprehended. " It is a 
mistake to believe that none but the violent passions, 
such as ambition and love, are able to triumph over the 
other active principles. Laziness, as languid as it is, 
often gets the mastery of them all ; overrules all the 
designs and actions of life, and insensibly consumes 
and destroys both passions and virtues." * 

From the foregoing observations it appears, that, in 
accounting for the diversities of genius and of intellect- 
ual character among men, important lights may be de- 
rived from an examination of their active propensities. 
It is of more consequence for me, however, to remark 
at present the intimate relation which an analysis of 
these propensities bears to the theory of morals, and its 
practical connection with our opinions on the duties 
and the happiness of human life. Indeed, it is in this 
way alone that the light of nature enables us to form 
any reasonable conclusions concerning the ends and 
destination of our being, and the purposes for which 
we were sent into the world : Quid sumus, et quidnam 
victuri g-ig-nimur.-f It forms, therefore, a necessary in- 
troduction to the science of ethics, or rather is the foun- 
dation on which that science may rest. 

II. Object and Plan of the Work.] In prosecuting 
our inquiries into the Active and the Moral Powers of 
Man, I propose, first, to attempt a classification and 
analysis of the most important principles belonging to 
this part of our constitution ; and, secondly, to treat of 
the various branches of our duty. Under the former of 
these heads, my principal aim will be to illustrate the 
essential distinction between those active principles 
which originate in man's rational nature, and those 
which urge him. by a blind and instinctive impulse, to 
their respective objects. 

In general, it may be here remarked, that the word 

# Sentences et Maximes, cclxvi. t Pcrsius, Sat. III. 1. 67. 

1* 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

action is properly applied to those exertions which are 
consequent on volition, whether the exertion be made 
on external objects, or be confined to our mental opera- 
tions. Thus, we say the mind is active when engaged 
in study. In ordinary discourse, indeed, we are apt to 
confound together action and motion. As the opera- 
tions in the minds of other men escape our notice, we 
can judge of their activity only from the sensible ef- 
fects it produces ; and hence we are led to apply the 
character of activity to those whose bodily activity 
is the most remarkable, and to distinguish mankind 
into two classes, the active and the speculative. In the 
present instance, the word active is used in its most ex- 
tensive signification, as applicable to every voluntary 
exertion. 

According to the definition now given of the word ac- 
tion, the primary sources of our activity are the circum- 
stances in which the acts of the will originate. Of 
these there are some which make a part of our consti- 
tution, and which, on that account, are called active 
principles. Such are hunger, thirst, the appetite which 
unites the sexes, curiosity, ambition, pity, resentment. 
These active principles are also called powers of the 
will, because, by stimulating us in various ways to ac- 
tion, they afford exercise to our sense of duty and our 
other rational principles of action, and give occasion to 
our voluntary determinations as free agents. 

III. Difficulty of the Study.] The study of this part 
of our constitution, although it may at first view seem 
to lie more open to our examination than the powers of 
the understanding, is attended with some difficulties 
peculiar to itself. For this various reasons may be 
assigned; among which there are two that seem princi- 
pally to claim our attention. 

1. When we wish to examine the nature of any of 
our intellectual principles, we can at all times subject 
the faculty in question to the scrutiny of reflection; and 
can institute whatever experiments with respect to it 
may be necessary for ascertaining its general laws 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

It is characteristic of all our operations purely intellect- 
ual to leave the mind cool and undisturbed, so that the 
exercise of the faculties concerned in them does not 
prevent us from an analytical investigation of their the- 
ory. The case is very different with our active powers, 
particularly with those which, from their violence and 
impetuosity, have the greatest influence on human hap- 
piness. When we are under the dominion of the pow- 
er, or, in plainer language, when we are hurried by pas* 
sion to the pursuit of a particular end, we feel no incli- 
nation to speculate concerning the mental phenomena. 
"When the tumult subsides, and our curiosity is awa- 
kened concerning the past, the moment for observation 
and experiment is lost, and we are obliged to search for 
our facts in an imperfect recollection of what was 
viewed, even in the first instance, through the most 
troubled and deceitful of all media. 

Something connected with this is the following re- 
mark of Mr. Hume : — " Moral philosophy has this pe- 
culiar disadvantage, which is not to be found in natu- 
ral, that, in collecting its experiments, it cannot make 
them purposely, with premeditation, and after such a 
manner as to satisfy itself concerning every particular 
difficulty that may arise. When I am at a loss to 
know the effects of one body upon another in any sit- 
uation, I need only put them in that situation, and ob- 
serve what results from it. But should I endeavour to 
clear up, after the same manner, any doubts in moral 
philosophy, by placing myself in the same case with 
that which I consider, it is evident that this reflection 
and premeditation would so disturb the operation of 
my natural principles, as must render it impossible to 
form any just conclusion from the phenomenon. We 
must therefore glean up our experiments in this science 
from a cautious observation of human life, and take 
them as they appear in the common course of the 
world, by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and 
in their pleasures." * 

* Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. I., Introduction. 



8 . INTRODUCTION. 

2. Another circumstance which adds much to the 
difficulty of this branch of study is the great variety of 
our active principles, and the endless diversity of their 
combinations in the characters of men. The same ac- 
tion may proceed from very different, and even oppo- 
site, motives in the case of two individuals, and even 
in the same individual on different occasions; — or an 
action which in one man proceeds from a single motive 
may, in another, proceed from a number of motives 
conspiring together and modifying each other's effects. 
The philosophers who have speculated on this subject 
have in general been misled by an excessive love of 
simplicity, and have attempted to explain the phenom- 
ena from the smallest possible number of data. Over- 
looking the real complication of our active principles, 
they have sometimes fixed on a single one, (good or 
bad, according as they were disposed to think well or 
ill of human nature,) and have deduced from it a 
plausible explanation of all the varieties of human 
character and conduct. 

Our inquiries on this subject must be conducted in one 
of two ways, either by studying the characters of other 
men, or by studying our own. In the former way, we 
may undoubtedly collect many useful hints, and many 
facts to confirm or to limit our conclusions ; but the 
conjectures we form concerning the motives of others 
are liable to so much uncertainty, that it is chiefly by 
attending to what passes in our own minds that we can 
reasonably hope to ascertain the general laws of our 
constitution as active and moral beings. 

Even this plan of study, however, as I have already 
hinted, requires uncommon perseverance, and still more 
uncommon candor. The difficulty is great of attend- 
ing to any of the operations of the mind ; but this 
difficulty is much increased in those cases in which we 
are led by vanity or timidity to fancy that we have an 
interest in concealing the truth from our own knowl- 
edge. 

Most men, perhaps, are disposed, in consequence of 
these and some other causes, to believe themselves bet- 



INTRODUCTION. S> 

ter than they really are ; and a few, there is reason to 
suspect, go into the opposite extreme, from the influ- 
ence of false systems of philosophy or religion, or from 
the gloomy views inspired by a morbid melancholy. 

When to these considerations we add the endless 
metaphysical disputes on the subject of the will, and 
of man's free agency, it may easily be conceived that 
the field of inquiry upon which we are now to enter 
abounds with questions not less curious and intricate 
than any of those which have been hitherto under our 
review. In point of practical importance some of them 
will be found in a still higher degree entitled to our at- 
tention. 

IV. Division of the Active Principles.] In the further 
prosecution of this subject, I shall avoid, as much as 
possible, all technical divisions and classifications, and 
shall content myself with the following enumeration 
of our Active Principles, which I hope will be found 
sufficiently distinct and comprehensive for our pur- 
poses. 

1. Appetites. 

2. Desires. 

3. Affections. 

4. Self-love. 

5. The Moral Faculty. 

The first three may be distinguished (for a reason 
which will afterwards appear) by the title of Instinc- 
tive or Implanted Propensities ; the last two by 
the title of Rational and Governing Principles of 
Action.* 

* In the above enumeration I have departed widely from Dr. Rcid's 
language. Sec his Essays on the Active Powers, Essay III., Parts I., II., 
anil J II. This great philosopher, with whom I am always unwilling to 
differ, refers our active principles to three classes, the mechanical, the 
animal, and the rational; using all these three words with what I think a 
very exceptional latitude. On this occasion I shall only observe, that tfTe 
word mechanical (under which he comprehends our instincts and habits) 
cannot, in my opinion, be properly applied to any of our active principles. 
It is indeed used, in this instance, merely as a term of distinction ; but it 
seems to imply some theory concerning the nature of the principles com- 
prehended undor it, and is apt to suggest incorrect notions on the subject. 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

If I hail been disposed to examine this part of our constitution with all 
the minute accuracy of which it is susceptible, I should have preferred the 
following arrangement to that which I have adopted, as well as to that 
proposed by Dr Reid: — 1. Of our original principles of action. 2. Of 
our acquired principles of action. 

The original principles of action may be subdivided into the animal and 
the rational ; to the former of which classes our instincts ought undoubtedly 
to be referred, as well as our appetites. In Dr. Reid's arrangement, noth- 
ing appears more unaccountable, if not capricious, than to call our appe- 
tites animal principles, because they are common to man and to the brutes; 
and, a-t the same time, to distinguish our instincts by the title of mechanical ; 
— when, of all our active propensities, there are none in which the nature 
of man bears so strong an analogy to that of the lower animals as in these 
instinctive impulses. Indeed, it is from the condition of the brutes that 
the word instinct is transferred to that of man by a sort of figure or met- 
aphor. 

Our acquired principles of action comprehend all those propensities to 
act which we acquire from habit. Such are our artificial appetites and 
artificial desires, and the various factitious motives of human conduct 
generated by association and fashion. 

At present, it being useless for any of the purposes which I have in view 
to attempt so comprehensive and detailed an examination of the subject, 
I shall confine myself to the general enumeration already mentioned. 
As our appetites, our desires, and our affections, whether original or ac- 
quired, stand in the same common relation to the Moral Faculty (the 
illustration of which is the chief object of this volume), I purposely avoid 
those slighter and less important subdivisions which might be thought to 
savour unnecessarily of scholastic subtilty. 

[For later classifications of our Active Principles, see Upham's Ele- 
ments of Mental Philosophy, Vol. II., Introduction, Chap, ii., and Whewell'g 
Elements of Morality, Book I. Chap, ii.] 



BOOK I. 

OF OUR INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 



CHAPTER, I. 

OF OUR APPETITES. 

I. Their Nature, Use, and Abuse.] This class of our 
Active Principles is distinguished by the following cir- 
cumstances : — 

1. They take their rise from the body, and are com- 
mon to us with the brutes. 

2. They are not constant, but occasional. 

3. They are accompanied with an uneasy sensation, 
which is strong or weak in proportion to the strength 
or weakness of the appetite. 

Our appetites are three in number, hunger, thirst, and 
the appetite of sex. Of these, two were intended for 
the preservation of the individual; the third for the 
continuation of the species ; and without them reason 
Would have been insufficient for these important pur- 
poses. Suppose, for example, that the appetite of 
hunger had been no part of our constitution, reason 
and experience might have satisfied us of the necessity 
of food to our preservation ; but how should we have 
been able, without an implanted principle, to ascertain, 
according to the varying state of our animal economy, 
the proper seasons for eating, or the quantity of food 
that is salutary to the body ? The lower animals not 
only receive this information from nature, but are, 
moreover, directed by instinct to the particular sort of 
food that is proper for them to use in health and in 
sickness. The senses of taste and smell, in the savage 



12 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

state of our species, are subservient, at least in some 
degree, to the same purpose. 

Our appetites can, with no propriety, be called selfish, 
for they are directed to their respective objects as ulti- 
mate ends, and they must all have operated, in the first 
instance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising 
from their gratification. After this experience, indeed, 
the desire of enjoyment will naturally come to be com- 
bined with the appetite ; and it may sometimes lead us 
to stimulate or provoke the appetite with a view to the 
pleasure which is to result from indulging it. Imagina- 
tion, too, and the association of ideas, together with 
the social affections, and sometimes the moral faculty, 
lend their aid, and all conspire together in forming a 
complex passion, in which the animal appetite is only 
one ingredient. In proportion as this passion is grati- 
fied, its influence over the conduct becomes the more 
irresistible, (for all the active determinations of our na- 
ture are strengthened by habit,) till at last we struggle 
in vain against its tyranny. A man so enslaved by his 
animal appetites exhibits humanity in one of its most 
miserable and contemptible forms. 

As an additional proof of the misery of such a state, 
it is of great importance to remark, that, while habit 
strengthens all our active determinations, it diminishes 
the liveliness of our passive impressions ; — a remarka- 
ble instance of which occurs in the effects produced by 
an immoderate use of strong liquors, which, at the 
same time that it confirms the active habit of intem- 
perance, deadens and destroys the sensibility of the pal- 
ate. In consequence of this law of our nature, the 
evils of excessive indulgence are doubled, inasmuch 
as our sensibility to pleasure decays in proportion as 
the cravings of appetite increase. 

In general, it will be found, that, wherever we at- 
tempt to enlarge the sphere of enjoyment beyond the 
limits prescribed by nature, we frustrate our own pur- 
pose. 

A man so enslaved by his appetites may undoubted- 
ly, in one sense, be called selfish; for, as he must ne- 



APPETITES. 13 

oessarily neglect the duties he owes to others, he may 
be presumed to be deficient in the benevolent affec- 
tions. But it cannot be said of him that he is actuated 
by an inordinate self-love, (meaning by that word an 
excessive regard for his own happiness,) for he sacrifices 
to the meanest gratifications all the noblest pleasures 
of which he is susceptible, and sacrifices to the pleas 
ure of the moment the permanent enjoyments of 
health, reputation, and conscience. This is true even 
when the desire of gratification is combined with the 
original appetite; for no two principles can be more 
widely at variance than the desire of gratification and 
the desire of happiness. 

Of the errors introduced into morals, in consequence 
of the vague use of the words selfishness and self-love, 
I shall afterwards take notice. What I wish chiefly to 
remark at present is, that in no sense of these words 
can we refer to them the origin of our animal appetites; 
and that the active propensities comprehended under 
this title are ultimate facts in the human constitution. 

II. Acquired Appetites.] Besides our natural appe- 
tites we have many acquired ones. Such are our ap- 
petites for tobacco, for opium, and for other intoxicating 
drugs. In general, every thing that stimulates the ner- 
vous system produces a subsequent languor, which gives 
rise to a desire of repetition. 

The universality of this appetite for intoxicating 
drugs is a curious fact in the history of our species. 
" It seems," says Dr. Robertson, " to have been one of 
the first exertions of human ingenuity to discover some 
composition of an intoxicating quality; and there is 
hardly any nation so rude, or so destitute of invention, 
as not to have succeeded in this fatal research. The 
most barbarous of the American tribes have been so 
unfortunate as to attain this art ; and even those who 
are so deficient in knowledge as to be unacquainted 
with the method of giving an inebriating strength to 
liquors by fermentation can accomplish the same end 
by other means. The people of the islands of North 



14 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

America and of California used for this purpose the 
smoke of tobacco, drawn up with a certain instrument 
into the nostrils, the fumes of which ascending to the 
brain, they felt all the transports and frenzy of intoxi- 
cation. In almost every part of the New World the 
natives possessed the art of extracting an intoxicating 
liquor from maize, or the manioc root, the same sub- 
stances which they convert into bread. The operation 
by which they effect this nearly resembles the common 
one of brewing, but with this difference, that, instead 
of yeast, they use a nauseous infusion of maize or 
manioc chewed by their women. The saliva excites 
a vigorous fermentation, and in a few days the liquor 
becomes fit for drinking. It is not disagreeable to the 
taste, and, when swallowed in large quantities, is of an 
inebriating quality. This is the general beverage of the 
Americans, which they distinguish by different names, 
and for which they feel such a violent and insatiable 
desire, as it is not easy either to conceive or describe." * 
Many striking confirmations of this remark occur in 
the voyages of Cook and of later navigators. 

III. Other analogous Propensities.] Our occasional 
propensities to action and to repose are, in many re- 
spects, analogous to our appetites. They have, indeed, 
all the three characteristics of our appetites already 
mentioned. They are common, too, to man and to the 
lower animals, and they operate, in our own species, 
in the most infant state of the individual. In general, 
every animal we" know is prompted by an instinctive 
impulse to take that degree of exercise which is salu- 
tary to the body, and is prevented from passing the 
bounds of moderation by that languor and desire of 
repose which are the consequences of continued ex- 
r ertion. 

There is something, also, very similar to this with 
respect to the mind. We are impelled by nature to 
the exercise of its different faculties, and we are warned, 

* History of America , Book IV. § 100. 



APPETITES. 15 

wnen we are in danger of overstraining them, by a 
consciousness of fatigue. After we are exhausted by 
a long course of application to business, how delight- 
ful are the first moments of indolence and repose ! 
O che bella cosa difar niente I We are apt to imagine 
that no inducement shall again lead us to engage in 
the bustle of the world : but, after a short respite from 
our labors, our intellectual vigor returns ; the mind 
rouses from its lethargy "like a giant from his sleep," 
and we feel ourselves urged by an irresistible impulse 
to return to our duties as members of society. 

The active principles already mentioned are common 
to man and to the brutes. But besides these, the latter 
have some instinctive impulses, of which I do not know 
that there are any traces to be found in the human race. 
Such are those antipathies which they discover against 
the natural enemies of their respective tribes. It is prob- 
able, I think, that their existence is guarded entirely by 
their appetites and antipathies; for the desire of self- 
preservation implies a degree of reason and reflection 
which they do not appear to possess. Even in the case 
of man, this desire is probably the result of his experi- 
ence of the pleasures which life affords; and, accord- 
ingly, as Dr. Beattie very finely remarks, Milton has, with 
exquisite judgment, represented Adam, in the first mo- 
ments of his being, as contemplating, without anxiety 
or regret, the idea of immediate annihilation: — 

" While thus I called and strayed I knew not whither 
From where I first drew air, and first beheld 
This happy light, when answer none returned, 
On a green, shady bank profuse of flowers 
Pensive I sat me down. There gentle sleep 
First found me, and with soft oppression seized 
My drowzied sense; untroubled, though I thought 
I then was passing to my former state 
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve." * 



* Paradise Lost, Book VIII. 283. 






16 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

CHAPTER II. 

OF OUR DESIRES. 

Our desires are distinguished from our appetites by 
the following circumstances: — 

1. They do not take their rise from the body. 

2. They do not operate periodically after certain in- 
tervals, nor do they cease after the attainment of a 
particular object. 

The most remarkable active principles belonging to 
this class are, — 

1. The Desire of Knowledge, or the principle of Cu- 
riosity. 

2. The Desire of Society. 

3. The Desire of Esteem. 

4. The Desire of Power, or the principle of Ambition. 

5. The Desire of Superiority, or the principle of Em- 
ulation. 

Section I. 

THE DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

I. Early and various Manifestations.] The principle 
of curiosity appears in children at a very early period, 
and is commonly proportioned to the degree of intellect- 
ual capacity they possess. The direction, too, which it 
takes, is regulated by nature according to the order of 
our wants and necessities ; being confined, in the first 
instance, exclusively to those properties of material ob- 
jects, and those laws of the material world, an ac- 
quaintance with which is essential to the preservation of 
our animal existence. Hence the instinctive eagerness 
with which children handle and examine every thing 
which is presented to them ; an employment which we 
are commonly apt to consider as a mere exercise of their 
animal powers, but which, if we reflect on the limited 



DESIRE OP KNOWLEDGE. 17 

province of sight prior to experience, and on the early 
period of life at which we are able to judge by the eye 
of the distances and of the tangible qualities of bodies, 
will appear plainly to be the most useful occupation in 
which they could be engaged, if it were in the power 
of a philosopher to have the regulation of their atten- 
tion from the hour of their birth. In more advanced 
years curiosity displays itself in one way or another in 
every individual, and gives rise to an infinite diversity in 
their pursuits, — engrossing the attention of one man 
about physical causes, of another about mathematical 
truths, of a third about historical facts, of a fourth about 
the objects of natural history, of a fifth about the trans- 
actions of private families, or about the politics and 
news of the day. 

Whether this diversity be owing to natural predis- 
position, or to early education, it is of little consequence 
to determine, as, upon either supposition, a preparation 
is made for it in the original constitution of the mind, 
combined with the circumstances of our external situa- 
tion. Its final cause is also sufficiently obvious, as it is 
this which gives rise in the case of individuals to a lim- 
itation of attention and study, and lays the foundation 
of all the advantages which society derives from the di- 
vision and subdivision of intellectual labor. 

II. Neither Selfish nor Moral in itself.] These ad- 
vantages are so great, that some philosophers have at- 
tempted to resolve the desire of knowledge into self- 
love. But to this theory the same objection may be 
stated which has already been made to the attempts of 
some philosophers to account, in a similar way, for the 
origin of our appetites; — that all of these are active 
principles, manifestly directed by nature to particular 
specific objects, as their ultimate ends; — that as the 
object of hunger is not happiness, but food, so the ob- 
ject of curiosity is not happiness, but knowledge. To 
this analogy Cicero has very beautifully alluded, when 
he calls knowledge the natural food of the understand- 
ing. " Est animorum ingeniorumque nostrorum na 
2* 



18 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

turale quoddam quasi pabulum consideratio contem- 
platioque naturae." We can indeed conceive a being 
prompted merely by the cool desire of happiness to 
accumulate information; but in a creature like man, 
endowed with a variety of other active principles, the 
stock of his knowledge would probably have been 
scanty, unless self-love had been aided in this particular 
by the principle of curiosity. 

Although, however, the desire of knowledge is not 
resolvable into self-love, it is not in itself an object of 
moral approbation. A person may indeed employ his 
intellectual powers with a view to his own moral im- 
provement, or to the happiness of society, and so far he 
acts from a laudable principle. But to prosecute study 
merely from the desire of knowledge is neither virtuous 
nor vicious. When not suffered to interfere with our 
duties it is morally innocent. The virtue or vice does 
not lie in the desire, but in the proper or improper reg- 
ulation of it. The ancient astronomer, who, when ac- 
cused of indifference with respect to public transactions, 
answered that his country was in the heavens, acted 
criminally, inasmuch as he suffered his desire of knowl- 
edge to interfere with the duties which he owed to 
mankind. 

III. But superior in Dignity and Use to the Appetites.] 
At the same time, it must be admitted that the desire 
of knowledge (and the same observation is applicable 
to our other desires) is of a more dignified nature than 
those appetites which are common to us with the brutes. 
A thirst for science has been always considered as a 
mark of a liberal and elevated mind ; and it generally 
cooperates with the moral faculty in forming us to those 
habits of self-government which enable us to keep our 
animal appetites in due subjection. 

There is another circumstance which renders this 
desire peculiarly estimable, that it is always accom- 
panied with a strong desire to communicate our knowl- 
edge to others ; insomuch, that it has been doubted ii 
the principle of curiosity would be sufficiently power 



DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 19 

fill to animate the intellectual exertions of any man in 
a long course of persevering study, if he had no pros- 
pect of being ever able to impart his acquisitions to his 
friends or the public. " Si quis in coelum ascendisset," 
says Cicero, " naturamque mundi et pulchritudinem 
siderum perspexisset, insuavem illam admirationem ei 
fore, quae jucundissima fuisset, si aliquem, cui narraret, 
habuisser. Sic natura solitarium nihil amat, semperque 
a J aliquod tamquam adminiculum annititur, quod in 
amicissimo quoque dulcissimum est." * And to the same 
purpose Seneca : — " Nee me ulla res deiectabit, licet 
sit eximia et salutaris, quam mihi uni sciturus sum. 
Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, ut illam inclusam 
teneam, nee enuntiem, rejiciam : nullius boni, sine socio, 
jucunda possessio est." f 

A strong curiosity, properly directed, may be justly 
considered as one of the most important elements in 
philosophical genius ; and, accordingly, there is no cir- 
cumstance of greater consequence in education than to 
keep the curiosity always awake, and to turn it to use- 
ful pursuits. I cannot help, therefore, disapproving 
greatly of a very common practice in this country, that 
of communicating to children general and superficial 
views of science and history by means of popular in- 
troductions. In this way we rob their future studies 
of all that interest which can render study agreeable, 
and reduce the mind, in the pursuits of science, to the 
same state of listlessness and languor as when we toil 
through the pages of a tedious novel after being made 
acquainted with the final catastrophe. , 

* De Amicitia, 23. Thus translated, or rather paraphrased, by Mel- 
moth: — L ' Were a man to be carried up to heaven, and the beauties oi 
universal nature displayed to his view, he would receive but little pleasure 
from the wonderful scene, if there were none to whom he might relate the 
glories he had. beheld. Human nature, indeed, is so constituted as to be in- 
capable of lonely satisfaction : man, like those plants which arc formed to 
embrace others, is led by an instinctive impulse to recline on his species • 
and he finds his happiest and most secure support in the arms of a faithful 
friend.'' 

t Seneca, Epist. Mor , Lib. I. Ep. G. " Nor, indeed, would any tiling give 
me pleasure, however excellent and salutary it might be, were I to keep the 
knowledge of it to myself. Were wisdom offered me under such restriction 
as to be obliged to conceal it, I would reject it. No enjoyment whatevci 
tan be agreeable without participation." 



20 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

It would contribute greatly to the culture and the 
guidance of this principle of curiosity, if the different 
sciences were taught as much as possible in the order 
of the analytic rather than in that of the synthetic 
method ;* a plan, however, which I readily admit it is 
not so practicable to carry into effect in a course of 
public as of private instruction. Such a mode of edu- 
calion, too, would be attended with the additional 
advantage of accustoming the student to the proper 
method of investigation ; and thereby preparing him in 
due time to enter on the career of invention and dis- 
covery. Nor is this all. It would impress the knowl- 
edge he thus acquired, in some measure by his own 
ingenuity, much more deeply on his memory than if it 
were passively imbibed from books or teachers ; — in the 
same manner as the windings of a road make a more 
lasting impression on the mind when we have once trav- 
elled it alone, and inquired out the way at every turn, 
than if we had travelled along it a hundred times trust- 
ing ourselves implicitly to the guidance of a companion. 

I am happy to be confirmed in this opinion by its 
coincidence with what has been excellently remarked 
on the same subject by Miss Edgeworth, in her treatise 
on Practical Education; a work equally distinguished 
by good sense and by originality of thought. The pas- 
sage I allude to more particularly at present is the short 
dialogue about the steam-engine, as improved by Mr. 
Wattf 

Section II. 

THE DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 

I. An Instinctive Principle.] Abstracted from those 
affections which interest us in the happiness of others, 



* Analytically we discover, by a sort of decomposition, the simple laws 
which are concerned in the phenomenon under consideration ; synthetically 
taking the laws for granted, we determine a priori what the result will ba 
Df any hypothetical combination of them — Ed. 

t Essays on Practical Education^ Chap. XXI. 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 2\ 

and from all the advantages which we ourselves derive 
from the social union, we are led by a natural and in* 
stinctive desire to associate with our species. This 
principle is easily discernible in the minds of children 
long before the dawn of reason. " Attend only," says 
an intelligent and accurate observer, " to the eyes, the 
features, and the gestures of a child on the breast when 
anolher child is presented to it; — both instantly, pre- 
vious to the possibility of instruction or habit, exhibit 
the most evident expressions of joy. Their eyes sparkle, 
and their features and gestures demonstrate, in the most 
unequivocal manner, a mutual attachment. When 
further advanced, children who are strangers to each 
other, though their social appetite be equally strong, 
discover a mutual shyness of approach, which, however, 
is soon conquered by the more powerful instinct of as- 
sociation." * 

In the lower animals, too, very evident traces of the 
same instinct appear. Jn some of these we observe a 
species of union strikingly analogous to political asso- 
ciations among men : in others we observe occasional 
unions among individuals to accomplish a particular 
purpose, — to repel, for example, a hostile assault; — 
but there are also various tribes which discover a de- 
sire of society, and a pleasure in the company of their 
own species, without an apparent reference to any 
further end. Thus we frequently see horses, when con- 
fined alone in an inclosure, neglect their food and break 
the fences to join their companions in the contiguous 
field. Every person must have remarked the spirit and 
alacrity with which this animal exerts himself on the 
road, when accompanied by another animal of his own 
species, in comparison of what he discovers when trav- 
elling alone ; and, with respect to oxen and cows, it 
has been asserted, that even in the finest pasture they 
do not fatten so rapidly in a solitary state as when they 
feed together in a herd.f 

* Smcllic's PhilosojiJty of Natural History, Chap. XT. 
t One of the best accounts of the social principle in animals is found in 
Kwainson's Habits and Instincts of Animals, Chapters IX. and X. — Ed. 



22 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

"What is the final cause of the associating instinct in 
such animals as have now been mentioned it is not 
easy to conjecture, unless we suppose that it was in- 
tended merely to augment the sum of their enjoyments. 
Bat whatever opinion we may form on this point, it is 
indisputable that the instinctive determination is a 
strong one, and that it produces striking effects on the 
habits of the animal, even when external circumstances 
are the most unfavorable to its operation. Horses and 
oxen, for example, when deprived of companions of 
their own species, associate and become attached to 
each other. The same thing sometimes happens be- 
tween individuals that belong to tribes naturally hos- 
tile ; as between dogs and cats, or between a cat and 
a bird. 

If these facts be candidly considered, there will ap- 
pear but little reason to doubt the existence of the so- 
cial instinct in our own species, when it is so agree- 
able to the general analogy of nature, as displayed 
through the rest of the animal creation. As this point, 
however, has been controverted warmly by authors of 
eminence, it will be necessary to consider it with some 
attention. 

II. The Tlieory of Hobbes stated and refuted.] The 
question with respect to the social or the solitary nature 
of man seems to me to amount to this ; whether man 
has any disinterested principles which lead him to unite 
with his fellow-creatures, or whether the social union 
be the result of prudential views of self-interest, sug- 
gested by the experience of his own insufficiency to 
procure the objec s of his natural desires. Of these 
two opinions, Hobbes has maintained the latter, and 
has endeavoured to establish it by proving, that, in what 
he calls the state of nature, every man is an enemy to 
his brother, and that it was the experience of the evils 
arising from these hostile dispositions that induced men 
to unite in a political society. In proof of this he in- 
sists on the terror which children feel at the sight of a 
stranger ; on the apprehension which, he says, a person 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 23 

naturally feels when he hears the tread of a foot in the 
dark; on the universal invention of locks and keys 
and on various other circumstances of a similar na- 
ture.* 

That this theory of Hobbes is contrary to the univer- 
sal history of mankind cannot be disputed. Man has 
always been found in a social state ; and there is reason 
even for thinking, that the principles of union which 
nature has implanted in his heart operate with the 
greatest force in those situations in which the advan- 
tages of the social union are the smallest. As society 
advances, the relations among individuals are continu- 
ally multiplied, and man is rendered the more neces- 
sary to man : but it may be doubted, if, in a period of 
great refinement, the social affections be as warm and 
powerful as when the species were wandering in the 
forest. 

Besides, it does not seem to be easy to conceive in 
what manner Hobbes's supposition oeuld be realized. 
Surely, if there be a foundation for any thing laid in 
the constitution of man's nature, it is for family union. 
The infant of our species continues longer in a help- 
less state, and requires longer the protecting care of 
both parents, than the young of any other animal. Be- 
fore the first child is able to provide for itself, a second 
and a third are produced, and thus the union of the 
sexes, supposing it at first to have been merely casual, 
is insensibly confirmed by habit, and cemented by the 
common interest which both parents take in their off- 
spring. So just is the simple and beautiful statement 
of the fact given by Montesquieu, that " man is born 
in society, and there he remains." 

From these considerations, it appears that the social 
union does not take its rise from views of self-interest, 
but that it forms a necessary part of the condition of 
man from the constitution of his nature. It is true, in- 
deed, that before he begins to reflect he finds himself 
connected with society by a thousand ties ; so that, in- 

* Leviathan, Part I. Chap. xiii. Da Corpore Politico, Part I. Chap. i. 



24 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

dependency of any social instinct, prudence would un- 
doubtedly prevent him from abandoning his fellow-crea- 
tures. But still it is evident that the social instinct 
forms a part of human nature, and has a tendency to 
unite men even when they stand in no need of each 
other's assistence. Were the case otherwise, prudence 
and the social disposition would be only different 
names for the same principle, whereas it is matter of 
common remark, that although the two principles be 
by no means inconsistent when kept within reasonable 
bounds, yet that the former, when it rises to any excess, 
is in a great measure exclusive of the latter. I have 
hinted, too, already, that it is in societies where individ- 
uals are most independent of each other as to their an- 
imal wants, that the social principles operate with the 
greatest force. 

III. The Wants and, Necessities of Man help to de- 
velop, but do not Create, Ids Social Principles.] Accord- 
ing to the view of the subject now given, the multi- 
plied wants and necessities of man in his infant state, 
by laying the foundation of the family union, impose 
upon our species, as a necessary part of their condition, 
those social connections which are so essential to our 
improvement and happiness. And therefore nothing 
could be more unphilosophical than the complaints 
which the ancient Epicureans founded upon this cir- 
cumstance, and which Lucretius has so pathetically ex- 
pressed in the following verses : — 

" Turn porro puer, ut sac vis projectus ab undis 
Navita, nudus humi jacet, infans, indigus omni 
Vitali auxilio, cum primnra in luminis oras 
Nixibus ex alvo matris natuca profudit : 
Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aaquum est, 
Cui tantum in vita restat transire malorum." * 

* Lib. V. 223. 

" As when wild, wrecking tempests sweep the skies, 
Cast on the shore the naked sailor lies ; 
So the weak infant, when he springs to light, 
Thrown on the strand of life in helpless plight, 
With mournful cries the joyful mansion fills, 
The unheeded omens of a life of ills." 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 25 

The philosophy of Pope is in this respect much 
more pleasing and much more solid : — 

" Heaven, forming each on other to depend, 
A master, or a servant, or a friend, 
Bids each on other for assistance call, 
Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally 
The common intci-est, or endear the tie. 
To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here." * 

The considerations now stated afford a beautiful il- 
lustration of the beneficent design with which the phys- 
ical condition of man is adapted to the principles of 
his moral constitution ; an adaptation so striking, that 
it is not surprising those philosophers who are fond of 
simplifying the theory of human nature should have 
attempted to account for the origin of these principles 
from the habits which our external circumstances im- 
pose. In this, as in many other instances, their atten- 
tion has been misled by the spirit of system from those 
wonderful combinations of means to particular ends, 
which are everywhere conspicuous in the universe. It 
is not by the physical condition of man that the essen- 
tial principles of his mind are formed ; but the one is 
fitted to the other by the same superintending wisdom 
which adapts the fin of the fish to the water, and the 
wing of the bird to the air, and which scatters the 
seeds of the vegetable tribes in those soils and expos- 
ures where they are fitted to vegetate. It is not the 
wants and necessities of his animal being which create 
his social principles, and which produce an artificial 
and interested league among individuals who are natu- 
rally solitary and hostile ; but, determined by instinct 
to society, endowed with innumerable principles which 
have a reference to his fellow-creatures, he is placed by 
the condition of his birth in that element where alone 
the perfection and happiness of his nature are to be 
found. 



* Essay on Man, Ep. II. 249. See on this subject The Moralists of 
Lord Shaftesbury. 



26 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

IV. Man's Nature adjusted beforehand to the Condi 
Hon in which he is placed.] In speaking of the lowe 
animals, I before observed, that such of them as are in 
stinctively social discover the secret workings of nature, 
even when removed from the society of their kind. 
This fact amounts in their case to a demonstration of 
that mutual adaptation of the different parts of nature 
to each other which I have just remarked. It demon- 
strates that the structure of their internal frame is pur- 
posely adjusted to that external scene in which they 
are destined to be placed. As the lamb, when it strikes 
with its forehead while yet unarmed, proves that it is 
not its weapons which determine its instincts, but that 
it has preexistent instincts suited to its weapons, so 
when we see an animal deprived of the sight of his 
fellows cling to a stranger, or disarm, by his caresses, 
the rage of an enemy, we perceive the workings of a 
social instinct, not only not superinduced by external 
circumstances, but manifesting itself in spite of cir- 
cumstances which are adverse to its operation. The 
same remark may be extended to man. When in 
solitude, he languishes, and, by making companions 
of the lower animals, or by attaching himself to 
inanimate objects, strives to fill up the void of which 
he is conscious. " Were I in a desert," says an author, 
who, amidst all his extravagances and absurdities, 
sometimes writes like a wise man, and, where the 
moral feelings are at all concerned, never fails to write 
like a good man, — "were I in a desert, I would find 
out wherewith in it to call forth my affections. If I 
could not do better, I would fasten them upon some 
sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to con- 
nect myself to ; I would court their shade, and greet 
them kindly for their protection. I would cut my 
name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest 
trees throughout the desert. If their leaves withered, 
I would teach myself to mourn, and when they re- 
joiced, I would rejoice along with them." 

The Count de Lauzun was confined by Louis XIV 
for nine years in the castle of Pignerol, in a smal 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 27 

room where no light could enter but from a chink in 
the roof. In this solitude he attached himself to a 
spider, and contrived for some time to amuse himself 
with attempting to tame it, with catching flies for its 
support, and with superintending the progress of its 
web. The jailer discovered his amusement, and killed 
the spider ; and the Count used afterwards to declare, 
that the pang he felt on the occasion could be com-, 
pared only to that of a mother for the loss of a child. 

This anecdote is quoted by Lord Karnes in his 
Sketches, and by the late Lord Auckland in his Princi- 
ples of Penal Law. It is remarkable that both these 
learned and respectable writers should have introduced 
it into their works on account of the shocking incident 
of the jailer, and as a proof of the pure and unprovok- 
ed malice of which some minds are capable, without 
taking any notice of it as a beautiful picture of the 
feelings of a man of sensibility in a state of solitude, and 
of his disposition to create to himself some object upon 
which he may rest those affections which have a ref- 
erence to society. 

It will be said that these are the feelings of one who 
has experienced the pleasures of social life, and that 
no inference can be drawn from such facts in opposi- 
tion to Hobbes. Bat if they do not prove in man an 
instinctive impulse towards society prior to experience, 
they at least prove that he feels a delight in the society 
of his fellow-creatures, which no view of self-interest is 
sufficient to explain. 

It does not belong to our present speculation to illus- 
trate the importance of the social union to our im- 
provement and our happiness. Its subserviency to 
both (abstracted entirely from its necessity for the 
complete gratification of our physical wants) is much 
greater than we should be disposed at first to appre- 
hend. In proof of this, it is sufficient to mention here 
its connection with the culture of our intellectual facul- 
ties, and with the development of our moral principles 
Illustrations of this may be drawn from the low statti 
m which both these parts of our nature are generally 



28 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

found in the deaf and dumb, and from the effects 
which a few months' education sometimes has in un- 
folding their mental powers. The pleasing change 
which in the mean time takes place in their once 
vacant countenances, when animated and lighted up 
by an active and inquisitive mind, cannot escape the 
notice of the most careless observer.* 



Section III. 

THE DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 

I. An Original Principle of our Nature,] This prin- 
ciple, as well as those we have now been considering, 
discovers itself at a very early period in infants, who, 
long before they are able to reflect on the advantages 
resulting from the good opinion of others, and even 
before they acquire the use of speech, are sensibly 
mortified by any expression of neglect or contempt. 
It seems, therefore, to be an original principle of our 



* For an additional illustration of the same thing, see a remarkable 
case of recovery from deafness and dumbness in the history of the Royal 
Academy of Sciences at Paris for the year 1703. 

A doctrine similar to that which I have now been controverting, con- 
cerning the origin of society, was maintained by some of the ancient 
sophists, and has found advocates in every age among those writers who 
wished to depreciate human nature, as well as among many who were 
anxious to represent man as entirely the creature of education and govern- 
ment, with the view of inculcating implicit and passive obedience to the 
civil magistrate. In Buchanan's elegant and philosophical Dialogue De 
Jure Rcgni apud Scotos, the question is particularly discussed between the 
two interlocutors, one of whom ascribes the origin of society to views of 
utility, meaning by utility the private interest or advantage of the indi- 
vidual. On the contrary, Buchanan himself, who is the other speaker, 
contends with great warmth for the existence of social principles in the 
nature of man, which, independently of any views of interest, lay a foun- 
dation for the social union. 

Part of this Dialogue is curious, as it shows how completely Buchanan 
had not only anticipated, but refuted, the very far-fetched argument which 
Hobbes was soon after to draw from his supposed state of nature in sup- 
port of his slavish maxims of government. 

[See the subject of man's natural sociality still further illustrated, in 
connection with experiments in prison discipline, in Dc Beaumont and De 
Tocqueville's Penitentiary System of the United States ; and in F. C Gray'a 
Prison Discipline of America.] 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 29 

nature; that is, it does not appear to be resolvable into 
reason and experience, or into any other principle 
more general than itself. An additional proof of this 
is the very powerful influence it has over the mind, — 
an influence more striking than that of any other active 
principle whatsoever. Even the love of life daily gives 
way to the desire of esteem, and of an esteem which, as 
it is only to a fleet our memories, cannot be supposed to 
interest our self-love. In what manner the association 
of ideas should manufacture, out of the other principles 
of our constitution, a new principle stronger than them 
all, it is difficult to conceive. 

In these observations I have had an eye to the 
theories of those modern philosophers who represent 
self-love, or the desire of happiness, as the only original 
principle of action in man, and who attempt to ac- 
count for the origin of all our other active principles 
from habit or the association of ideas. That this 
theory is just in some instances cannot be disputed. 
Thus, in the case of avarice, it is manifest that it is 
from habit alone it derives its influence over the mind ; 
for no man surely was ever brought into the world 
with an innate love of money. Money is at first de- 
sired, merely as the means of obtaining other objects ; 
but in consequence of being long and constantly ac- 
customed to direct our efforts to its attainment on 
account of its apprehended utility, we come at last to 
pursue it as an ultimate end, and frequently retain our 
attachment to it long after we have lost all relish for 
the enjoyments it enables us to command. In like 
manner, it has been supposed that the esteem of our 
fellow-creatures is at first desired on account of its 
apprehended utility, and that it comes in time to be 
pursued as an ultimate end, without any reference on 
our part to the advantages it bestows. In opposition 
to this doctrine it seems to me to be clear, that as the 
object of hunger is not happiness, but food; as the 
object of curiosity is not happiness, but knowledge; 
so the object of this principle of action is not happi- 
ness, but the esteem and respect of other men. That 

3* 



30 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

this is not inconsistent with the analogy of our na- 
ture appears from the observations already made on 
our appetites and desires ; and that it really is the fact 
may be proved by various arguments. Before touch- 
ing, however, on these, I must remark, that I consider 
this as merely a question of speculative curiosity ; 
for, upon either supposition, the desire of esteem is 
equally the work of nature ; and consequently, upon 
either supposition, it is equally unphilosophical to 
attempt, by metaphysical subtil ties, to counteract her 
wise and beneficent purposes. 

Among the different arguments which concur to 
prove that the desire of esteem is not wholly resolvable 
into the association of ideas, one of the strongest has 
already been hinted at, — the early period of life at 
which this principle discovers itself, — long before we 
are able to form the idea of happiness, far less to judge 
of the circumstances which have a tendency to pro- 
mote it. The difference in this respect between avarice 
and the desire of esteem is remarkable. The former 
is the vice of old age, and is, comparatively speaking, 
confined to a few. The latter is one of the most pow- 
erful engines in the education of children, and is not 
less universal in its influence than the principle of 
curiosity. 

II. The Desire of Posthumous Fame represented by 
Wollaston as Illusory.] The desire, too, of posthumous 
fame, of which no man can entirely divest himself, 
furnishes an insurmountable objection to the theories 
already mentioned. It is, indeed, an objection so 
obvious to the common sense of mankind, that all the 
philosophers who have leaned to these, theories have 
employed their ingenuity in attempting to resolve this 
desire into an illusion of the imagination produced by 
habit. This, too, was the opinion of an excellent 
writer, and still more excellent man, Mr. Wollaston, 
who, from a well-meant, but very mistaken, zeal to 
weaken the influence of this principle of action on 
human conduct, has been at pains to give as ludicrous 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 31 

an account as possible of its origin. As I differ widely 
from Wollaston on this point, both in his theoretical 
speculations and in the practical inferences he deduces 
from them, I shall quote the passage at length, and then 
subjoin a few remarks on it. 

" Men please themselves with notions of immortality, 
and fancy a perpetuity of fame secured to themselves 
by books and testimonies of historians; but alas! it is 
a stupid delusion when they imagine themselves present 
and enjoying that fame at the reading of their story after 
their death. And beside, in reality, the man is not 
known ever the more to posterity, because his name is 
transmitted to them. He doth not live, because his 
name does. When it is said, 'Julius Caesar subdued 
Gaul, beat Pompey, and changed the Roman common- 
wealth into a monarchy,' it is the same thing as to say, 
1 The conqueror of Pompey was Caesar' ; that is, Caesar 
and the conqueror of Pompey are the same thing, and 
Caesar is as much known by the one designation as by 
the other. The amount, then, is only this, that the con- 
queror of Pompey conquered Pompey, or somebody con- 
quered Pompey ; or rather, since Pompey is now as little 
known as Caesar, somebody conquered somebody. Such 
a poor business is this boasted immortality ; and such 
as has been described is the thing called glory among 
us ! The notion of it may serve to excite them who, 
having abilities to serve their country in time of real 
danger or want, or to do some other good, have yet not 
philosophy enough to do this upon principles of virtue, 
or to see through the glories of the world (just as we 
excite children by praising them, and as we see many 
good inventions and improvements proceed from emu- 
lation and vanity) ; but to discerning men this fame is 
mere air, and the next remove from nothing, which they 
despise, if not shun. I think there are two considera- 
tions which may justify a desire of some glory or honor, 
and scarce more. When men have performed any vir- 
tuous actions, or such as sit easy on their memories, it 
is a reasonable pleasure to have the testimony of the 
world added to that of their own consciences, that they 



32 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

have done well. And more than that, if the reputation 
acquired by any qualification or action may produce 
a man any real comfort or advantage (if it be only 
protection from the insolence and injustice of mankind, 
or if it enables him, by his authority, to do more good 
to others), to have this privilege must be a great satis- 
faction, and what a wise and good man may be al- 
lowed, as he has opportunity, to propose to himself. 
But then he proposes it no further than it may be use- 
ful, and it can be no further useful than he wants it. 
So that, upon the whole, glory, praise, and the like, are 
either mere vanity, or only valuable in proportion to 
defects and wants." * 

It appears from this passage, that Wollaston does 
not consider the desire of posthumous fame as an ul- 
timate fact in our nature, for he proposes a theory to 
account for it. " It is," says he, " a stupid delusion, 
when men imagine themselves present and enjoying 
that fame at the reading of their story after death." 
Mr. Smith, too, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, 

*■ Wollaston' s Religion of Nature Delineated, Sect. V. § xix. A thought 
substantially the same with that of Wollaston occurs in Cowley's ode en- 
titled Life and Fame. 

" Great Caesar's self a higher place does claim 
In the seraphic entity of fame. 

He, since that toy, his death, 

Doth fill each mouth and breath. 
'T is true, the two immortal syllables remain ; 

But, O ye learned men, explain, 

What essence, what existence this, 
What substance, what subsistence, what hypostasis 

In six poor letters is ? 
In those alone does the great Caesar live. 
'T is all the conquered world could give." 

Notwithstanding the merit of these lines, I should hardly have thought 
it worth while to quote them, if Dr. Hurd (a critic of no common ingenuity 
as well as learning) had not shown, by his comment upon them, how com- 
pletely he had misapprehended the reasoning both of the poet and of the 
philosopher. He remarks : — 

" This lively ridicule on posthumous fame is well enough placed in a 
poem or declamation ; but we are a little surprised to find so grave a 
writer as Wollaston diverting himself with it. 'In reality,' says he, 'the 
man is not known ever the more to posterity because his name is trans- 
mitted to them. He does not live, because his name does.' When it is 
said, ' Julius Caesar subdued Gaul,' &c, &c, the sophistry is apparent. 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM 33 

teems to think that the desire of a posthumous fame- 
is to be resolvable into an illusion of the imagination, 
" Men," says he, " have often voluntarily thrown away 
life to acquire after death a renown which they could 
no longer enjoy. Their imagination, in the mean time, 
anticipated that fame which was thereafter to be be- 
stowed upon them. Those applauses which they were 
never to hear rung in their ears, the thoughts of that 
admiration whose effects they were never to feel play- 
ed about their hearts, banished from their breasts the 
strongest of all natural fears, and transported them to 
perform actions which seem almost beyond the reach 
of human nature." * But why have recourse to an il- 
lusion of the imagination to account for a principle 
which the wisest of men find it impossible to extin- 
guish in themselves, or even sensibly to weaken ; and 
none more remarkably than some of those who have 
employed their ingenuity in attempting to turn it into 
ridicule ? Is it possible that men should imagine them- 
selves present and enjoying their fame at the reading of 

Put Cato in the place of Cassar, and then see whether that great man do 
not live in his name substantially, that is, to good purpose, if the impression 
which these two immortal syllables make on the mind be of use in exciting 
posterity, or any one man, to the love and imitation of Cato's virtue." — 
Kurd's Cowley, Vol. I. p. 179. 

In this remark, Hurd plainly proceeds on the supposition, that Wollas 
ton's sophistry is directed against the utility of the love of posthumous 
glory, whereas the only point in dispute relates to the oritjin of this prin- 
ciple, which AVollaston seems to have thought, if it could not be resolved 
into the rational motive of self-love, must be the illegitimate and contemp- 
tible offspring of our own stupidity and folly. 

How very different must Cowley's feelings have been when he wrote 
the metaphysical ode referred to by Hurd, from those which inspired that 
first burst of juvenile emotion which forms the exordium to his Poetical 
Works ! 

" What shall I do to be for ever known, 
And make the age to come my own ? 
I shall, like beasts or common people, die, 
Unless you write my elegy. 

What sound is 't strikes mine ear ? 
Sure I fame's trumpet hear. 
It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can 
Raise up the buried man.'' 

t Part III. Chap. ii. 



34 



INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OP ACTION. 



their story after death, without being conscious of this 
operation of the imagination themselves ? Is not this 
to depart from the plain and obvious appearance of the 
fact, and to adopt refinements similar to those by which 
the selfish philosophers explain away all our disinter- 
ested affections ? We might as well suppose that a 
man's regard for the welfare of his posterity and friends 
after his death does not arise from natural affection, 
but from an illusion of the imagination, leading him 
to suppose himself still present with them, and a witness 
of their prosperity.* If we have confessedly various 
other propensities directed to specific objects as ulti- 
mate ends, where is the difficulty of conceiving that a 
desire, directed to the good opinion of our fellow-crea- 
tures (without any reference to the advantages it is to 
yield us either now or hereafter), may be among the 
number ? 

III. Vindication of this Principle.] It would not, in- 
deed, (as I have already hinted,) materially affect the 
argument, although we should suppose, with Wollaston, 
that the desire of posthumous fame is resolvable into 
an illusion of the imagination. For, whatever be its 
origin, it was plainly the intention of nature that all 
men should be in some measure under its influence; 
and it is perhaps of little consequence whether we re- 
gard it as a principle originally implanted by nature, or 
suppose that she has laid a foundation for it in other 
principles which belong universally to the species. 

* The two cases seem to be so exactly parallel, that it is somewhat sur- 
prising that no attempt should have been made to extend to the latter prin- 
ciple of action the same ridicule which has been so lavishly bestowed on 
the former. So far, however, from this being the case, I believe it will be 
universally granted, that, where the latter principle fails in producing its 
natural and ordinary effect on the conduct, there must exist some defect 
in the rational or moral character, for which no other good qualities can 
sufficiently atone. " He that careth not for his own house is worse than 
an infidel." But if this be acknowledged with respect to the interest we 
take in the concerns of our connections after our own disappearance from 
the present scene, why judge so harshly of the desire of posthumous fame? 
Do not the two principles often cooperate in stimulating our active exer- 
tions to the very same ends, more especially in those cases (alas! too com- 
mon) where the inheritance of a respectable name is all that a good man 
has it in his power to bequeathe to his family ? 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 35 

How very powerfully it operates appears, not only 
from the heroical sacrifices to which it has led in every 
age of the world, but from the conduct of the meanest 
and most worthless of mankind, who, when they are 
brought to the scaffold in consequence of the clearest 
and most decisive evidence of their guilt, frequently 
persevere to the last, with the terrors of futurity full in 
their view, in the most solemn protestations of their 
innocence ; and that merely in the hope of leaving be- 
hind them, not a fair, but an equivocal or problematical 
reputation. 

"With respect to the other parts of Wollaston's rea- 
soning, that it is only the letters which compose our 
names that we can transmit to posterity, it is worthy 
of observation, that, if the argument be good for any 
thing, it applies equally against the desire of esteem 
from our contemporaries, excepting in those cases in 
which we ourselves are personally known by those 
whose praise we covet, and of whose applause we hap- 
pen ourselves to be ear-witnesses. And yet, undoubt- 
edly, according to the common judgment of mankind, 
the love of praise is more peculiarly the mark of a lib- 
eral and elevated spirit in cases where the gratification 
it seeks has nothing to recommend it to those whose 
ruling passions are interest or the love of flattery.* It 
is precisely for the same reason that the love of posthu- 
mous fame is strongest in the noblest and most exalted 
characters. If self-love were really the sole motive in 
all our actions, Wollaston's reasoning would prove 



* That the desire of esteem, if a fantastic principle of action in the one 
of these cases, is equally so in the other, is remarked by Pope ; but, in- 
stead of availing himself of this consideration to justify the desire of pos 
thumous renown, he employs it as an argument to expose the nothingness 
of fame in all cases whatsoever. 

" What 's fame 1 a fancied life in others 1 breath, 
A thing beyond us e'en before our death. 
All that we feel of it begins and ends 
In the small circle of our foes or friends; 
To all beside, as much an empty shade 
An Eugene living as a Cesar dead." 

Essay on Man, Epistle IV. 237. 



00 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION* 

clearly the absurdity of any concern about our mem ■ 
ory. Such a concern, as Dr. Hutcheson observes, *• no 
selfish being, who had the modelling of his own nature, 
would choose to implant in himself. But, since we 
have not this power, we must be contented to be thus 
rmtwitted by nature into a public interest against our 
willP * 

As to the fact on which "Wollaston's argument pro- 
ceeds, is it not more philosophical to consider it as af- 
fording an additional stimulus to the instinctive love of 
posthumous fame, by holding it up to the imagination 
as the noblest and proudest boast of human ambition, 
to be able to entail on the casual combination of letters 
which composes our name the respect of distant ages, 
and the blessings of generations yet unborn ? Nor is 
it an unworthy object of the most rational benevolence 
to render these letters a sort of magical spell for kin- 
dling the emulation of the wise and good wherever 
they shall reach the human ear. 

Nor is it only in this instance that nature has " thus 
outwitted us " for her own wise and salutary purposes. 
By a mode of reasoning analogous to that of Wollas- 
ton, it would be easy to turn most, if not all, our ac- 
tive principles into ridicule. But what should we gain 
by the attempt, but a ludicrous exposition of that mor- 
al constitution which it has pleased our Maker to give 
us, and which, the more we study it, will be found to 
abound the more with marks of wise and beneficent 
design ? 

It is fortunate, in such cases, that, although the rea- 
sonings of the metaphysician may puzzle the under- 
standing, they produce very little effect on the conduct. 
He may tell us, for example, that the admiration of fe- 
male beauty is absurd, because beauty, as well as color, 
is a quality not existing in the object, but in the mind 
of the spectator; or (which brings the case still nearer 
to that under our consideration) he may allege that 
the whole charm of the finest countenance would van- 

* Nature and Conduct of tJie Passions, Sect. I. Art. IV. 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 67 

ish if it were examined with the aid of a microscope. 
In all such cases, as well as in the instance referred to 
by Wollaston, we are determined very powerfully by 
nature; in a way, indeed, that our reason cannot ex- 
plain, but which we never fail to find subservient to 
valuable ends. For I am far from thinking that it 
would be of advantage to mankind if Wollaston's 
views were generally adopted. That the love of glory 
has sometimes covered the earth with desolation and 
bloodshed I am ready to grant; but the actions to 
which it generally prompts are highly serviceable to 
the world. Indeed, it is only by such actions that an 
enviable fame is to be acquired. 

A stron ff conviction of this truth has led Dr. Aken- 
side to express himself in one of his odes with a 
warmth which passes, perhaps, the bounds of strict 
propriety, but for which a sufficient apology may be 
found in the poetical enthusiasm by which it was in- 
spired. The ode is said to have been occasioned by a 
sermon against the love of glory. 

" Come, then, tell me, sage divine, 

Is it an offence to own 

That our bosoms e'er incline 

Towards immortal glory's throne ? 

For with me nor pomp nor pleasure, 

Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure, 

So can fancy's dream rejoice, 

So conciliate reason's choice. 
As one approving word of her impartial voice. 

" If to spurn at noble praise 

Be the passport to thy heaven, 

Follow thou these gloomy ways ; 

No such law to me was given : 

Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me 

Faring like my friends before me, 
. Nor a holier heaven desire 

Than Timolcon's arms acquire, 
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre." 

Having mentioned the name of Milton, I cannot for- 
bear to add, that he too has called the love of fame an 
infirmity, although he has qualified this implied censure 
by calling it the " infirmity of a noble mind." He has 
distinctly acknowledged, at the same time, the heroic 
4 



38 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

sacrifices of ease and pleasure to which it has prompt* 
ed the most distinguished benefactors of the human 
race. 

" Eame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(The last infirmity of noble minds) 
To scorn delights and live laborious days." 

8 

IV. Hume's Theory respecting' its Origin.] I must 
not dismiss this subject without taking some notice of 
a theory started by Mr. Hume with respect to the ori- 
gin of the love of praise; a theory which applies to 
this passion even when it has for its object the praise 
of our contemporaries. " Of all opinions," he ob- 
serves, " those which we form in our own favor, how- 
ever lofty and presuming, are at bottom the frailest, and 
the most easily shaken by the contradiction and oppo- 
sition of others. Our great concern in this case makes 
us soon alarmed, and keeps our passions upon the 
watch; our consciousness of partiality still makes us 
dread a mistake; and the very difficulty of judging 
concerning an object which is never set at a due dis- 
tance from us, nor seen in a proper point of view, 
makes us hearken anxiously to the opinion of others 
who are better qualified to form opinions concerning 
us. Hence that strong love of fame with which all 
mankind are possessed. It is in order to fix and con- 
firm their favorable opinion of themselves, not from any 
original passion, that they seek the applause of others." * 

I think it cannot be doubted that the circumstance 
here mentioned by Mr. Hume adds greatly to the pleas- 
ure we derive from the possession of esteem ; but it 
sufficiently appears from the facts already stated, partic- 
ularly from the early period of life at which this princi- 
ple makes its appearance, that there is a satisfaction 
arising from the possession of esteem perfectly uncon- 
nected with the cause referred to by this author. Mr. 
Hume has therefore mistaken a concomitant effect for 
the cause of the phenomenon in question. 

* Dissertation on the Passions, Sect. II. § 10. 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 39 

In remarking, however, this concomitant effect, he 
must be allowed to have called our attention to a fact 
of some importance in the philosophy of the human 
mind, and which ought not to be overlooked in analyz- 
ing the compounded sentiment of satisfaction we de- 
rive from the good opinion of others. Nor is this the 
only accessory circumstance that enhances the pleasure 
resulting from the gratification of the original principle. 
If in those cases where we are somewhat doubtful of 
the propriety of our own conduct we are anxious to 
have in our favor the sanction of public opinion, so, 
on the other hand, when we are satisfied in our own 
minds that our conduct has been right, part of the 
pleasure we receive from esteem arises from observing 
the just views and candid dispositions of others. Nor 
is it less indisputable, on the contrary supposition, that 
when, in consequence of calumny and misrepresenta- 
tion, we fail in obtaining that esteem to which we 
know ourselves to be entitled, our disappointment at 
missing our just reward is aggravated, to a wonderful 
degree, by our sorrow for the injustice and ingratitude 
of mankind. Still, however, it must be remembered 
that these are only accessory circumstances, and that 
there is a pleasure resulting from the possession of es- 
teem which is not resolvable into either of them, and 
which appears to be an ultimate fact in the constitu- 
tion of our nature. 

V. Incidental Benefits resulting from the Love of 
Fame.] From the passage formerly quoted from Wol- 
laston it appears that he apprehended the love of fame 
to be justifiable only in two cases. The one is, when 
we desire it as a confirmation of the rectitude of our 
own judgments ; the other, when the possession of it 
can be attended with some real and solid good. But 
why, I mast again repeat, offer any apology for our 
obeying a natural principle of our constitution, so long 
as we preserve it under due regulation ? 

It is not unworthy of remark, that this principle is 
one of those with which our fellow-creatures are most 



40 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

disposed to sympathize. With what indignation do we 
hear the slightest reflection cast on the memory of one 
who was dear to us, and how sacred do we feel the duty 
of coming forward in his defence ! Nor is this sympathy 
confined to the circle of our acquaintance. It embraces 
the wise and good of the most remote ages, and 
prompts us irresistibly to protect their fame from the 
assaults of envy and detraction. Whatever theory phi- 
losophers may adopt as to the origin of this sympathy, 
its utility in preserving immaculate the reputation of 
those ornaments of humanity whom mankind look up 
to as models for imitation is equally indisputable. 

I have already said that the desire of esteem is, on 
the whole, a useful principle of action; for, although 
there are many cases in which the public opinion is 
erroneous and corrupted, there are many more in which 
it is agreeable to reason, and favorable to the interests 
of virtue and of mankind. The habits, therefore, 
which this principle of action has a tendency to form 
are likely, in most instances, to coincide with those 
which are recommended by a sense of duty. In many 
men, accordingly, who are very little influenced by 
higher principles, a regard to the opinion of the world 
(or, as we commonly express it, a regard to character) 
produces a conduct honorable to themselves and bene- 
ficial to society. 

To this observation it may be added, that the habits 
to which we are trained by the desire of esteem render 
the acquisition of virtuous habits more easy. The de- 
sire of esteem operates in children before they have a 
capacity to distinguish right from wrong ; or at least 
the former principle of action is much more powerful 
in their case than the latter. Hence it furnishes a most 
useful and effectual engine in the business of education, 
more particularly by training us early to exertions of 
self-command and self-denial. It teaches us, for exam- 
ple, to restrain our appetites within those bounds which 
decency prescribes, and thus forms us to habits of mod- 
eration and temperance. And although our conduct 
cannot be denominated virtuous so long as a regard to 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 41 

the opinion of others is our only motive, yet the habits 
we thus acquire in infancy and childhood render it more 
easy for us to subject our passions to the authority of 
reason and conscience as we advance to maturity. "Id 
that young man," said Sylla, speaking of Caesar, " who 
walks the streets with so little regard to modesty, I fore- 
see many Marinses." His idea probably was, that on 
a temper so completely divested of sympathy with the 
feelings of others society could lay little hold, and that 
whatever principle of action should happen to gain 
the ascendant in his mind was likely to sacrifice to its 
own gratification the restraints both of honor and of 
duty. 

VT. Adam Smith confounds Desire of Esteem with the 
Moral Motive.] These, and some other considerations 
of the same kind, have struck Mr. Smith so forcibly, 
that he has been led to resolve our sense of duty into a 
regard to the good opinion, and a desire to obtain the 
sympathy, of our fellow-creatures. I shall afterwards have 
occasion to examine the principal arguments he alleges 
in support of his conclusions. At present I shall only 
remark, that, although his theory may account for the 
desire which all men, both good and bad, have to assume 
the appearance of virtue, it never can explain the origin 
of our notions of duty and of moral obligation. One 
striking proof of this is, that the love of fame can only 
be completely gratified by the actual possession of those 
qualities for which we wish to be esteemed ; and that, 
when we receive praises which we know we do not de- 
serve, we are conscious of a sort of fraud or imposition 
on the world. 

" All fame is foreign but of true desert, — 
Plays round the head, hut comes not to the heart." 

In further confirmation of the same doctrine it may 
be observed, that, although the desire of esteem is often 
a useful auxiliary to our sense of duty, and although, 
in most of our good actions, the two principles are per- 
haps more or less blended together, yet the merit of vir- 
4* 



42 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

tuous conduct is always enhanced, in the opinion of 
mankind, when it is discovered in the more private sit- 
uations of life, where the individual cannot be suspected 
of any views to the applauses of the world. Even 
Cicero, in whose mind vanity had at least its due sway, 
has borne testimony to this truth: — " Mihi quidem 
laudabiliora videntur omnia, quae sine venditatione et 
sine populo teste fiunt: non quo fugiendus sit (omnia 
enim benefacta in luce se collocari volunt) sed tamen 
nullum theatrum virtuti conscientia majus est."* So 



* Tusc. Disp., Lib. II. 26. " Besides, to me, indeed, every thing seems 
the more commendable, the less the people are courted, and the fewer eyes 
there are to see it. Not that observation is to be avoided, for every gener- 
ous action loves the public view ; still, there is no theatre for virtue like 
the witness of a good conscience." The same remark is made by Pliny 
in one of his epistles, Lib. III. Epist. XVI. , where it is illustrated by one 
of the most beautiful anecdotes recorded in the annals of our species. 
Although no English version can possibly do justice to the conciseness and 
spirit of Pliny's own language, I shall, for the sake of my unlearned read- 
ers, quote the anecdote referred to above, in the admirable translation of 
Mr. Melmoth. 

"I have frequently observed, that, amongst the noble actions and re- 
markable sayings of distinguished persons in either sex, those which have 
been most celebrated have not always been the most illustrious ; and I am 
confirmed in this opinion by a conversation I had yesterday with Fannia. 
This lady is granddaughter to that celebrated Arria who animated her 
husband to meet death by her own glorious example. She informed me 
of several particulars relating to Arria, not less heroical than this famous 
action of hers, though less taken notice of, which, I am persuaded, will 
raise your admiration as much as they did mine. Her husband, CaEcinna 
Paetus, and his son, were both at the same time attacked with a dangerous 
illness, of which the son died. This youth, who had a most beautiful per- 
son and amiable behaviour, was not less endeared to his parents by his 
virtues than by the ties of affection. His mother managed his funeral so 
privately, that Partus did not know of his death. Whenever she came to 
his bed-chamber she pretended her son Avas better ; and, as often as he in 
quired after his health, would answer that he had rested well, or had eat 
with an appetite. When she found she could no longer restrain her grief, 
but her tears were gushing out, she would leave the room, and, having 
given vent to her passion, return again with dry eyes, as if she had dis- 
missed every sentiment of sorrow at her entrance. The action was no 
doubt truly noble, when, drawing the dagger, she plunged it in her breast, 
and then presented it to her husband, with that ever memorable, I had 
atmost said divine expression, — ' Pittas, it is not painful? It must, how- 
ever, be considered that, when she spoke and acted thus, she had the pros- 
pect of immortal glory before her eyes to encourage and support her. 
But was it not something much greater, without the view of such power- 
ful motives, to hide her tears, to conceal her grief, and cheerfully seem the 
mother whep she was so no more q " 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 43 

far, therefore, are the desire of esteem and the sense oi 
duty from being radically the same principle of action, 
that the former is only an auxiliary to the latter, and is 
always understood to diminish the merit of the agent 
in proportion to the influence it had over his determi- 
nations. 

An additional proof of this may be derived from the 
miserable effects produced on the conduct by the desire 
of fame, when it is the sole, or even the governing-, prin- 
ciple of our actions. In this case, indeed, it seldom fails 
to disappoint its own purposes, for a lasting fame is 
scarcely to be acquired without a steady and consistent 
conduct, and such a conduct can only arise from a con- 
scientious regard to the suggestions of our own breasts. 
The pleasure, therefore, which a being capable of reflec- 
tion derives from the possession of fame, so far from be- 
ing the original motive to worthy actions, presupposes 
the existence of other and of nobler motives in the mind. 
.Nor is this all ; when a competition happens between 
the desire of fame and a regard to duty, if we sacrifice 
the latter to the former we are filled with remorse and 
self-condemnation, and the applauses of the world afford 
us but an empty and unsatisfactory recompense ; where- 
as a steady adherence to the right, even although it 
should accidentally expose us to calumny, never fails 
to be its own reward. Whether, therefore, we regard 
our lasting happiness or our lasting fame, the precept 
of Cicero is equally deserving of our attention. 

" Neither make it your study to secure the applauses 
of the vulgar, nor rest your hopes of happiness on re- 
wards which men can bestow. Let virtue, by her own 
native attractions, allure you in the paths of honor. 
What others may say of you is their concern, not yours ; 
nor is it worth your while to be out of humor for the 
topics which your conduct may supply to their conver- 
sation." — " Neque sermonibus vulgi dederis te, nee in 
prsemiis humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum ; suis te 
oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus. Quid 
de te alii loquantur, ipsi videant: sed loquentur tamen." * 



* Somn. Sc, 



ptonis. 



44 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 



Section IV. 

THE DESIRE OF POWER. 

I. Early Manifestations of this Principle] The man- 
ner in which the idea of power is at first introduced into 
the mind has been long a perplexing subject of specu- 
lation to metaphysicians, and has given rise to some of 
the most subtile disquisitions of the human understand- 
ing. But, although it be difficult to explain its origin, 
the idea itself is familiar to the most illiterate, even at 
the earliest period of life ; and the desire of possessing 
the corresponding object seems to be one of the strong- 
est principles of human conduct. 

In general, it may be observed, that, whenever we are 
led to consider ourselves as the authors of any effect, 
we feel a sensible pride or exultation in the conscious- 
ness of poiver, and the pleasure is in general propor- 
tioned to the greatness of the effect, compared with the 
smallness of our exertion. 

What s commonly called the pleasure of activity is 
in truth the pleasure of power. . Mere exercise, which 
produces no sensible effect, is attended with no enjoy- 
ment, or a very slight one. The enjoyment, such as it 
is, is only corporeal. 

The infant, while still on the breast, delights in exert- 
ing its little strength on every object it meets with, and 
is mortified when any accident convinces it of its own 
imbecility. The pastimes of the boy are, almost with- 
out exception, such as suggest to him the idea of his 
poiver. When he throws a stone, or shoots an arrow, 
he is pleased with being able to produce an effect at a 
distance from himself; and, while he measures with his 
eye the amplitude or range of his missile weapon, con- 
templates with satisfaction the extent to which his power 
has reached. It is on a similar principle that he loves 
to bring his strength into comparison with that of his 
fellows, and to enjoy the consciousness of superior 
prowess. Nor need we search in the malevolent dispo- 



DESIRE OF POWER. 45 

sitions of our nature for any other motive to the appar- 
ent acts of cruelty which he sometimes exercises over 
the inferior animals, — the sufferings of the animal, in 
such cases, either entirely escaping his notice, or being 
overlooked in that state of pleasurable triumph which 
the wanton abuse of poiver communicates to a weak 
and unreflecting judgment. The active sports of the 
youth captivate his fancy by suggesting similar ideas, 
— of strength of body, of force of mind, of contempt 
of hardship and of danger. And accordingly such are 
the occupations in which Virgil, with a characteristical 
propriety, employs his young Ascanius. 

"At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri 
Gaudet equo ; jamqtie hos cursu, jam prseterit illos ; 
Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis 
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem." * 

II. Increases our Desire of Knoivledge in after Life.) 
As we advance in years, and as our animal powers lose 
their activity and vigor, we gradually aim at extending 
our influence over others by the superiority of fortune 
and station, or by the still more flattering superiority 
of intellectual endowment, by the force of our under- 
standing, by the extent of our information, by the arts 
of persuasion, or the accomplishments of address. What 
but the idea of power pleases the orator in managing 
the reins of an assembled multitude, when he silences 
the reason of others by superior ingenuity, bends to his 
purposes their desires and passions, and, without the 
aid of force or the splendor of rank, becomes the arbiter 
of the fate of nations ! 

To the same principle we may trace, in part, the 
pleasure arising from the discovery of general theorems 

* jEneid., Lib. IV. 156. 

"While there, exulting, to his utmost speed 
The young- Ascanius spurs his fiery steed, 
Outstrips by turns the flying social train, 
And scorns the meaner triumphs of the plain: 
The hopes of glory all his soul inflame*, 
Eager he longs to run at nohler game, 
And drench his youthful javelin in the £""9 
Of the fierce lion, or the mountain boa* 



46 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

in the sciences. Every such discovery puts us in pos- 
session of innumerable particular truths or particular 
facts, and gives us a ready command of a great stock 
of knowledge, of which we could not, with equal ease, 
avail ourselves before. It increases, in a word, our in- 
tellectual power in a way very analogous to that in 
which a machine or engine increases the mechanical 
power of the human body. 

The discoveries we make in natural philosophy have, 
beside this effect, a tendency to enlarge the sphere of 
our power over the material universe ; first, by enabling 
us to accommodate our conduct to the established 
course of physical events ; and secondly, by enabling 
us to call to our aid many natural powers or agents as 
instruments for the accomplishment of our purposes. 

In general, every discovery we make with respect to 
the laws of nature, either in the material or moral 
worlds, is an accession of power to the human mind, 
inasmuch as it lays the foundation of prudent and ef- 
fectual conduct in circumstances where, without the 
same means of information, the success of our pro- 
ceedings must have depended on chance alone. The 
desire of power, therefore, comes, in the progress of 
reason and experience, to act as an auxiliary to our in- 
stinctive desire of knoivledge ; and it is with a view to 
strengthen and confirm this alliance that Bacon so 
often repeats his favorite maxim, that knowledge and 
power are synonymous or identical terms. 

III. Other Passions resolvable, in part at least, into 
the Desire of Power. \ The idea of power is, partly at 
least, the foundation of our attachment to property. It 
is not enough for us to have the use of an object. We 
desire to have it completely at our own disposal, with- 
out being responsible to any person whatsoever for the 
purposes to which we may choose to turn it. " There 
is an unspeakable pleasure," says Addison, " in calling 
any thing one's own. A freehold, though it be but in 
ice and snow, will make the owner pleased in the pos* 
session and stout in the defence of it." 



DESIRE OF POWER. 47 

Avarice is a particular modification of the desire of 
nower, arising from the various functions of money in a 
commercial country. Its influence as an active princi- 
ple is greatly strengthened by habit and association, in- 
somuch that the original desire of power is frequently 
lost in the acquired propensities to which it gives birth ; 
the possession of money becoming, in process of time, 
an ultimate object of pursuit, and continuing to stimu- 
late the activity of the mind after it has lost a relish 
for every other species of exertion.* 

The love of liberty proceeds in part, if not wholly, 
from the same source ; from a desire of being able to 
do whatever is agreeable to our own inclination. Slav- 
ery mortifies us, because it limits our power. 

Even the love of tranquillity and retirement has been 
resolved by Cicero into the desire of power. " Multi 
autem et sunt et fuerunt, qui earn, quam dico, tranquil- 
litatem expetentes, a negotiis publicis se removerint, ad 

otiumque perfugerint His idem propositum 

fuit quod regibus, ut ne qua re egerent, ne cui parerent, 
libertate uterentur ; cujus proprium est sic vivere ut 
velis. Quare, cum hoc commune sit potentiae cupido- 
rum cum iis quos dixi otiosis ; alteri se adipisci id pos- 
se arbitrantur, si opes magnas habeant, alteri, si con- 
tend sint et suo, et parvo. " f 

* Berkeley in his Querist has started the same idea. 

"Whether the real end and aim of men be not power? and whether he 
who conld have every thing else at his wish or will would value money ? " 

To this query the good Bishop has subjoined another, which one would 
hardly have expected from a writer so zealously attached to Tory and 
High- Church principles. 

" Whether the public aim in every well-governed state be not, that each 
member, according to his just pretensions and industry, should have 
power 1 " 

Naturam expel/as furcd, tamen usque recurret. 

t De Off.-, Lib. L 20. 21. "Now there have been and are many who 
have withdrawn from public business, and sought in retirement the tran- 
quillity of which I am speaking. These men have proposed to themselves 
the same end with kings; namely, that they may need nothing, be subject 
to no one, and enjoy freedom, the leading privilege of which is to live as 
you please. They, therefore, who aspire after power have this in common 
with those who court retirement, that the former think they are able to at- 
tain the same object by the possession of a vast fortune which the other 
look for in contentment with their present means, however humble." 



48 INSTINCTIM5 PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

The idea of power is also, in some degree, the foun- 
dation of the pleasure of virtue. We love to be at lib- 
erty to follow our own inclinations, without being sub- 
ject to the control of a superior; but even this is not 
sufficient to our happiness. When we are led by vi- 
cious habits, or by the force of passion, to do what rea- 
son disapproves, we are sensible of a mortifying sub- 
jection to the inferior principles of our nature, and feel 
our own littleness and weakness. On the other hand, 
he thai rulethhis spirit feels himself greater than he that 
taketh a city. " It is pleasant," says Dr. Tillotson, " to 
be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many 
others. It is pleasant to grow better, because that is to 
excel ourselves. It is pleasant to mortify and subdue 
our appetites, because that is victory. It is pleasant to 
command our passions, and keep them within the 
bounds of reason, because this is empire." 

From the observations now made, it appears that 
the desire of power is subservient to important purposes 
in our constitution, and is one of the principal sources 
both of our intellectual and moral improvements. An 
examination of the effects which it produces on so- 
ciety would open views very strikingly illustrative of 
benevolent intention in the Author of our frame. I 
shall content myself, however, with remarking, that the 
general aspect of the fact affords a very favorable view 
of human nature. When we consider how much more 
every man has it in his power to injure others than to 
promote their interests, it must appear manifest that 
society could not possibly subsist unless the benevolent 
affections had a very decided predominance over those 
principles which give rise to competition and enmity. 
Whoever reflects duly on this consideration will, if I 
do not deceive myself, be inclined to form conclusions 
concerning the dispositions of his fellow-creatures very 
different from the representations of them to be found 
in the writings of some gloomy and misanthropical 
moralists.* 

* On ambition see Lieber, Political Ethics, Book III. Chap, iv — Ed. 



DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 49 

Section V. 

EMULATION, OR THE DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 

I. Not a Malevolent Affection,] This principle of 
action is classed by Dr. Reid with the affections, and is 
considered by him as a malevolent affectum* He tells 
us, however, that he does not mean by this epithet to 
insinuate that there is any thing criminal in emulation, 
any more than in resentment when excited by an inju- 
ry; but he thinks that it involves a sentiment of ill-will 
to our rival, and makes use of the word malevolent to 
express this sentiment, as the language afibrds no soft- 
er epithet to convey the idea. 

I own it appears to me that emulation, considered as 
a principle of action, ought to be classed with the de- 
sires, and not with the affections. It is, indeed, fre- 
quently accompanied with a malevolent affection ; but 
it is the desire of superiority which is the active princi- 
ple, and the affection is only a concomitant circum- 
stance. 

I do not even think that this malevolent affection is 
a necessary concomitant of the desire of superiority. 
It is possible, surely, to conceive (although the case 
may happen but rarely) that emulation may take place- 
between men who are united by the most cordial friend- 
ship, and without a single sentiment of ill-will disturb- 
ing their harmony. 

II. Distinction between Emulation and Eni\t/.] When 
emulation is accompanied with malevolent affection, it 
assumes the name of envy. The distinction between 
these two principles of action is accurately stated by 
Dr. Butler. " Emulation is merely the desire of superi- 
ority over others, with whom we compare ourselves. 
To desire the attainment of this superiority by the par- 
ticular means of others being brought down below out 

* Essays on the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap v. 

5 



50 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

own level is the distinct notion of envy. From whence 
it is easy to see, that the real end which the natural 
passion, emulation, and which the unlawful one, envy, 
aims at is exactly the same ; and, consequently, that to 
do mischief is not the end of envy, but merely the 
means it makes use of to attain its end." * Dr. Reid 
himself seems to have clearly perceived the distinction, 
although in other parts of the same section he has lost 
sight of it again. " He who runs a race," says he, 
"feels uneasiness at seeing another outstrip him. This 
is uncorrupted nature, and the work of God within him. 
Bat this uneasiness may produce either of two very 
different effects. It may incite him to make more 
vigorous exertions, and to strain every nerve to get 
before his rival. This is fair and honest emulation. 
This is the effect it is intended to produce. But if he 
has not fairness and candor of heart, he will look with 
an evil eye on his competitor, and will endeavour to 
trip him, or to throw a stumbling-block in his way. 
This is pure envy, the most malignant passion that 
can lodge in the human breast, which devours, as 
its natural food, the fame and the happiness of those 
who are most deserving of our esteem" f 

In quoting these passages, I would not be under- 
stood to represent this distinction between emulation 

* Sermon I., On Human Nature. 

t Eeid, On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. v. Dr. Beattie, 
in his Elements of Moral Science, after stating very correctly the speculative 
distinction between emulation and envy, observes with great truth, that it 
is extremely difficult to preserve the former wholly unmixed with the 
latter, and that emulation, though entirely different from envy, is very apt, 
through the weakness of our nature, to degenerate into it. To this re- 
mark he subjoins the following very striking practical reflection. " Let 
the man." says he, "who thinks he is actuated by generous emulation only, 
and wishes to know whether there be any thing of envy in the case, 
examine his own heart, and ask himself whether his friends, on becoming, 
though in an honoi'able way, his competitors, have less of his affection 
than they had before ; whether he be gratified by hearing them depreciat- 
ed ; whether he would wish their merit less, that he might the more easily 
equal or excel them ; and whether he would have a more sincere regard 
for them if the world were to acknowledge him their superior. If his 
heart answer all or any of these questions in the affirmative, it is time to 
look out for a cure, for the symptoms of envy are but too apparent." 
Part I. Chap. ii. § 5. 



DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 5l 

and envy as a novelty in the science of ethics ; for thft 
very same distinction was long ago stated with admira- 
ble conciseness and justness by Aristotle ; whose defi- 
nitions, (I shall take this opportunity of remarking by 
the way,) however censurable they may frequently be 
when they relate to physical subjects, are, in most in- 
stances, peculiarly happy when they relate to moral 
ideas. " JEmulatio bonum quiddam est, et bonis viris £ 
convenit; at invidere improbum est, et hominum 
improborum; nam semulans talem efficere se studet, ut 
ipsa bona quoque nanciscatur: at invidens studet 
efficere, ut ne alter boni quid habeat." * 

Before leaving the subject, I think it of consequence 
again to repeat, that, notwithstanding the speculative 
distinction I have been endeavouring to make between 
emulation and envy, the former disposition is so 
seldom altogether unmixed with the latter, that men 
who are conscious of possessing original powers oi 
thinking can scarcely be at too much pains to draw a 
veil over their claims to originality, if they wish to 
employ their talents to the best advantage in the 
service of mankind. 

" Men must be taught as if you taught them not, 
And things unknown proposed as things forgot." t 

In the observations which I have hitherto made 
upon emulation, I have proceeded on the supposition, 
that the subject of competition is the personal qualities 
of the individual. These, however, are not the great 
objects of ambition with the bulk of mankind, nor 
perhaps do they occasion jealousies and enmities so 
fatal to our morals and our happiness, as those which 
are occasioned by the seemingly partial and unjust 
distribution of the goods of fortune. To see the 
natural rewards of industry and genius fall to the 

* Aristot., Rhetor. ,Lib. II. Cap. xi. The whole chapter is excellent. I 
have adopted in the text the Latin version of Buhle. "Emulation is a 
good thiug, and belongs to good men ; envy is bad, and belongs to bad 
men. What a man is emulous of he strives to attain, that he may really 
possess the desired object ; the envious arc satisfied if nobody has it." 

t Pope's Essay on Criticism, 1. 574. 



52 IN.STINCT1VE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

share of the weak and the profligate can scarcely fail 
to excite a regret in the best regulated tempers; and 
to those who are disposed (as every man perhaps is in 
some degree) to overrate their own pretensions, and to 
undervalue those of their neighbours, this regret is a 
source of discontent and misery, which no measure of 
external prosperity is sufficient to remove. The feel- 
ing, when it does not lead to any act of injustice or 
dishonor, is so intimately connected with our sense of 
merit and demerit, that many allowances for it will be 
made by those who reflect candidly on the common 
infirmities of humanity; and much indulgence is due 
from the pro jperous to their less fortunate rivals. So 
much, indeed, is this indulgence recommended to us by 
all the best principles of our nature, and so painful is 
the reflection that we are even the innocent cause of 
disquiet to others, that it may be doubted whether the 
constraint and embarrassment produced by great and 
sudden accessions of prosperity be not more than 
sufficient to counterbalance any solid addition they are 
likely to bring to our own happiness.* 

* The following admirable passage is from Smith's Theory of the Moral 
Sentiments, Part I. Sect II. Chap, v.: — "The man who, by some sudden 
revolution of fortuie, is lifted up all at once into a condition of life greatly 
ahove what he ha I formerly lived in, may be assured that the congratula- 
tions of his best friends are not all of them perfectly sincere. An upstart, 
though of the greatest merit, is generally disagreeable, and a sentiment of 
envy commonly prevents us from heartily sympathizing with his joy. If 
he has any judgment, he is sensible of this," and, instead of appearing to 
be elated with his good fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to 
smother his joy, and keep down that elevation of mind with which his new 
circumstances naturally inspire him. He affects the same plainness of 
dress, and the sa ne modesty of behaviour, which became him in his 
former station. He redoubles his attentions to his old friends, and endeav- 
ours more than ever to be humble, assiduous, and complaisant. And this 
is the behaviour which in his situation we most approve of; because we 
expect, it seems, that he should have more sympathy with our envy and 
aversion to his happiness than we have to his happiness. It is seldom that, 
with all this, he succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his humility, and 
he grows weary of this constraint. In a little time, therefore, he generally 
leaves all his old fiends behind him, some of the meanest of them except- 
ed, who may, perhaps, condescend to become his dependents: nor does he 
always acquire any new ones ; the pride of his new connections is as much 
affronted at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had been by his 
becoming their superior; and it requires the most obstinate and persevering 
modesty to atone for this mortification to either. He generally grows weary 



DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 53 

III. The Desire to excel a universal Passion.] 
Among the lower animals we see many symptoms of 
emulation, but in them its effects are perfectly insignifi- 
cant when compared with those it produces on human 
conduct. Their emulation is chiefly confined to swift- 
ness,* strength, or favor with their females. I think, 
too, among dogs we may perceive something like 
jealousy or rivalship in courting the favor of man. In ' 
our own race emulation operates in an infinite variety 
of directions, and is one of the principal sources of 
human improvement. 

Human life has been often likened to a race, and the 
parallel holds, not only in the general resemblance, but 
in many of the minuter circumstances. When the 
horses first start from the barrier, how easy and 
sportive are their sallies, — sometimes one taking the 
lead, sometimes another! If they happen to run 
abreast, their contiguity seems only the effect of the 
social instinct. In proportion, however, as they advance 
in their career, the spirit of emulation becomes grad- 
ually more apparent, till at length, as they draw near 
to the goal, every sinew and every nerve is strained to 
the utmost, and it is well if the competition closes 
without some suspicion of jostling and foul play on 
the part of the winner. 

too soon, and is provoked, by the sullen and suspicious pride of the one, and 
by the saucy contempt of the other, to treat the first with neglect and the sec- 
ond with petulance, till at last he grows habitually insolent, and forfeits the 
esteem of all. If the chief part of human happiness arises from the con- 
sciousness of being beloved, as I believe it does, these sudden changes of 
fortune seldom contribute much to happiness. He is happiest who advan- 
ces more gradually to greatness, whom the public destines to every step of 
his preferment long before he arrives at it, in whqm, upon that account, 
when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to whom 
it cannot reasonably create either any jealousy in those he overtakes, or 
any envy in those he leaves behind." 

In Bacon's Essays there is an article on Envy, abounding with original, 
and, in the main, just reflections. Even those which are somewhat ques- 
tionable may be useful in suggesting materials of thought to others. 

* One of the most remarkable instances of this that I have read of is 
the emulation of the race-horses at Rome when run without riders. This 
emulation is even said to be inspirited by the concourse of spectators. — 
See Observations made in a Tour to Italy, by the celebrated M. de la Con« 
dainine, 

5* 



54 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

How exact and melancholy a picture of the race of 
ambition, of the insensible and almost inevitable effect 
of political rivalship in extinguishing early friendships, 
and of the increasing eagerness with which men contin- 
ue to grasp at the palm of victory till the fatal moment 
arrives when it is to drop from their hands for ever! 



Artificial Desires.] As we have artificial appetites , so 
we have also artificial desires. Whatever conduces to 
the attainment of any object of natural desire is itself 
desired on account of its subservience to this end, and 
frequently comes in process of time to be regarded as 
valuable in itself, independent of this subservience. It 
is thus (as was formerly observed) that wealth becomes 
with many an ultimate object of desire, although it is 
undoubtedly valued at first merely on account of its 
subservience to the attainment of other objects. In 
like manner we are led to desire dress, equipage, 
retinue, furniture, on account of the estimation in 
which they are supposed to be held by the public. Dr. 
Hutcheson calls such desires secondary desires, and ac- 
counts for their origin in the way I have now mention- 
ed. "Since we are capable," says he, "of reflection, 
memory, observation, and reasoning about the distant 
tendencies of objects and actions, and not confined to 
things present, there must arise, in consequence of our 
original desires, secondary desires of every thing imag- 
ined to be useful to gratify any of the primary desires, 
and that with strength proportioned to the several 
original desires, and the imagined usefulness or neces- 
sity of the advantageous object." — " Thus," he contin- 
ues, "as soon as we come to apprehend the use of 
wealth or power to gratify any of our original desires, 
we must also desire them. Hence arises the universal- 
ity of the desires of wealth and power, since they are the 
means of gratifying all other desires."* The only 



# Nature and Conduct of the Passions, Sect. I. Art. II, 



ARTIFICIAL DESIRES. 55 

thing exceptionable in the foregoing passage is, that 
the author classes the desire of power with that of 
wealth ; whereas I apprehend it to be clear, according 
to Hutcheson's own definition, that the former is a pri- 
mary desire, and the latter a secondary one. Avarice, 
indeed, (as I have already remarked,) is but a particular 
modification of the desire of power generated by the 
conventional value which attaches to money in the 
progress of society, in consequence of which it becomes 
the immediate and the habitual object of pursuit in all 
the various departments of professional industry. 

The author, also, of the Preliminary Dissertation pre- 
fixed to King's Origin of Evil attempts to explain, by 
means of the association of ideas, the origin, not only 
of avarice, but of the desire of knowledge and of the 
desire of fame, both of which I have endeavoured to 
show, in the preceding pages, are justly entitled to 
rank with the primary and most simple elements of our 
active constitution. That they, as well as all the other 
original principles of our nature, are very powerfully in- 
fluenced by association and habit, is a point about 
which there can be no dispute; and hence arises the 
plausibility of those theories which would represent 
them as wholly factitious.* 

* Dr. Hartley's once celebrated work, entitled Observations on Man, in 
which he has pushed the theory of association to so exttavagant a length, 
and which, not many years ago, found so many enthusiastic admirers in 
England, seems to have owed its existence to the dissertation here referred to. 

" The work here offered to the public," he tells us himself in his preface, 
" consists of papers written at different times, but taking their rise from 
the following occasion. 

" About eighteen years ago I was informed that the Rev. Mr. Gay, then 
living, asserted the possibility of deducing all our intellectual pleasures 
and pains from association. This put me upon considering the power of 
association. Mr. Gay published his sentiments on this matter, about the 
same time, in a Dissertation on the Fundamental Principle of Virtue, prefixed 
to Mr. Archdeacon Law's translation of Archbishop King's Origin of Evil? 

[Mr. Stewart speaks with too much confidence of the waning influence 
of the "■ once celebrated work " of Hartley. Since he wrote this note, one 
of the ablest defences of the Hartleian view has appeared in the Analysis 
p/* the Human Mind, by James Mill. 

Most writers, holding with Stewart to a plurality of elementary desires, 
differ from him in making the desire of property and the desire of self- 
vreservation to be of this number. Sec Upham's Mental Philosophy, Vol. 



06 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

CHAPTER III. 

OF OUR AFFECTIONS. 
Section I. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

I. What Principles included under this Head.] Under 
this title are comprehended all those active principles 
whose direct and ultimate object is the communication 
either of enjoyment or of suffering to any of our fel- 
low-creatures. According to this definition, which has 
been adopted by some eminent writers, and among oth- 
ers by Dr. Reid, resentment, revenge, hatred, belong to 
the class of our affections, as well as gratitude or pity. 
Hence a distinction of the affections into benevolent 
and malevolent. I shall afterwards mention some con- 
siderations which lead me to think that the distinction 
requires some limitations in the statement. 

Our benevolent affections are various, and it would 
not perhaps be easy to enumerate them completely. 



II. Part. I. Chap iv., and WheweU's Elements of Morality, Book I. Chap, 
ii. On the desire of property, consult Lieber's Political Ethics, Book II. 
Chap, ii., and Illustrations of the Passions, Vol. I. Chap. v. Also the phre- 
nologists, and particularly Gall. 

On the other hand, the author of the article Disir in the Dictionnaire des 
Sciences Philosophiques reduces them to three, curiosity, ambition, and sym- 
pathy. This writer observes : — " The mind always knows, more or less, 
that which it desires ; reason illuminates what sensibility pursues. Male- 
branche gave the saying of the poet. Ignoti nulla cupido, under a philosoph- 
ical form of expression, when he defined desire to be ' the idea of a good 
which a man possesses not, but hopes to possess.' Desire is distinguished 
by this from the blind tendency which urges every being towards its end, 
whether it knows it or not. It is a spontaneous movement of nature 
transformed by intelligence, and constitutes, therefore, a phenomenon which 
cannot take place except among intelligent beings. A stone has its affini- 
ties ; a brute has its instincts ; man alone has his desires, because he alone 
has received the gift of thought." 

Consult, also, on the subjects treated of in this chapter and the follow- 
ing, Gibon, Cours de Philosophic, Tom. I. p. 226 et set/. ; Bautain, Philoso- 
phic Morale. Tom. I. Chap. iv. ; Dr. WheweU's edition of Butler's Thret 
Sermons on Human Nature: with a Preface and Notes.] 



BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 57 

The parental and the filial affections, the affections of 
kindred, love, friendship, patriotism, universal benevo' 
lence, gratitude, pity to the distressed, are some of the 
most important. Besides these there are peculiar be- 
nevolent affections excited by those moral qualities in 
other men which render them either amiable or respect- 
able, or objects of admiration. 

In the foregoing enumeration, it is not to be under- 
stood that all the benevolent affections particularly 
specified are stated as original principles, or ultimate 
facts in our constitution. On the contrary, there can 
be little doubt that several of them may be analyzed 
into the same general principle, differently modified ac- 
cording to the circumstances in which it operates. 
This, however, (notwithstanding the stress which has 
been sometimes laid upon it,) is chiefly a question of 
arrangement. Whether we suppose these principles to 
be all ultimate facts, or some of them to be resolvable 
into other facts more general, they are equally to be re- 
garded as constituent parts of human nature, and, upon 
either supposition, we have equal reason to admire the 
wisdom with which that nature is adapted to the situ- 
ation in which it is placed. The laws which regulate 
the acquired perceptions of sight are surely as much a 
part of our frame as those which regulate any of our 
original perceptions ; and although they require for 
their development a certain degree of experience and 
observation in the individual, the uniformity of the re- 
sult shows that there is nothing arbitrary or accidental 
in their origin. 

The question, indeed, concerning the origin of our 
different affections, leads to some curious disquisitions, 
but is of very subordinate importance to those inquiries 
which relate to their nature and laws and uses. In 
many philosophical systems, however, it seems to have 
been considered as the most interesting subject of dis- 
cussion connected with this part of the human consti- 
tution. 

II. Two Circumstances in which all the Benevolent 



t)8 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

Affections agree.] Before we proceed to consider any 
of our benevolent affections in detail, I shall make a 
few observations on two circumstances in which they 
all agree. In the first place, they are all accompanied 
with an agreeable feeling ; and, secondly, they imply 
u desire of happiness or of good to their respective 
objects/ 

1. That the exercise of all our kind affections is ac- 
companied with an agreeable feeling will not be ques- 
tioned. Next to a good conscience it constitutes the 
principal part of human happiness. With what satis- 
faction do we submit to fatigue and danger in the ser- 
vice of those we love, and how many cares do even the 
most selfish voluntarily bring on themselves by their 
attachment to others! So much, indeed, of our happi- 
ness is derived from this source, that those authors 
whose object is to furnish amusement to the mind avail 
themselves of these affections as one of the chief vehi- 
cles of pleasure. Hence the principal charm of trage- 
dy, and of every other species of pathetic composition. 
How far it is of use to separate in this manner "the 
luxury of pity " from the opportunities of active exer- 
tion may perhaps be doubted. My own opinion on 
this question I have stated at some length in the Phi- 
losophy of the Human Mind.f 

Without entering, however, in this place into the ar- 
gument I have there endeavoured to support, I shall 
only remark at present, that the pleasures of kind affec- 
tion are by no means confined to the virtuous part of 
our species. They mingle also with our criminal indul- 
gences, and often mislead the young and thoughtless by 
the charms they impart to vice and folly. It is, indeed, 
from this very quarter that the chief dangers to morals 
are to be apprehended in early life ; and it is a melan- 
choly consideration to add, that these dangers are not 
a little increased by the amiable and attractive qualities 
by which nature often distinguishes those unfortunate 



* Sec Reid On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. iii. 
t Part I. Chap. vii. Sect. v. 



BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 59 

men who would seem, on a superficial view, to be her 
peculiar favorites. 

Nor is it only when the kind affections meet with 
circumstances favorable to their operation that the ex- 
ercise of them is a source of enjoyment. Contrary to 
the analogy of most, if not all, of our other active 
principles, there is a degree of pleasure mixed with the 
pain even in those cases in which they are disappointed 
in the attainment of their object. Nay, in such cases 
it often happens that the pleasure predominates so far 
over the pain as to produce a mixed emotion, on which 
a wounded heart loves to dwell. When death, for ex- 
ample, has deprived us of the society of a friend, we 
derive some consolation for our loss from the recollec- 
tion of his virtues, which awakens in our mind all 
those kind affections which the sight of him used to in- 
spire ; and in such a situation the indulgence of these 
affections is preferred, not only to every lighter amuse- 
ment, but to every other social pleasure. Heu quanto 
minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse ! The 
final cause of the agreeable emotion connected with 
the exercise of benevolence in all its various modes 
was evidently to induce us to cultivate with peculiar 
care a class of our active principles so immediately 
subservient to the happiness of society.* 

2. All our benevolent affections imply a desire of 
happiness to their respective objects. Indeed, it is 
from this circumstance they derive their name. 

III. Our Benevolent Affections not resolvable into 
Self-love.] The philosophers who have endeavoured 
to resolve our appetites and desires into self-love have 
given a similar account of our benevolent affections. 

* See Lucan's picturesque and pathetic description of the behaviour 
of Cornelia, when she retired to the hold of the ship, to indulge her grief 
in solitude and darkness, after the murder of Pompey. 
" Caput ferali obduxit amictu, 
Decrevitque pari tenebras, puppisque cavemis 
Delituit ; scevumque arete complexa dolorem 
Pcrfruitur lacrymis, et amat pro conjugc luctum," &c, &c. 

Pharsalia, Lib. IX. 109. 



60 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

It is evident that this amounts to a denial of their ex- 
istence as a separate class of active principles; for 
when a thing is desired, not on its own account, but as 
instrumental to the attainment of something else, it is 
not the desire of the means, but that of the end, which 
is in this case the principle of action. 

In the course of my observations on the different af- 
fections, when I come to consider them particularly, I 
shall endeavour to show that this account of their ori- 
gin is extremely wide of the truth. In the mean time, 
it may be worth while to remark, in general, how 
strongly it is opposed by the analogy of the other ac- 
tive powers already examined. We have found that 
the preservation of the individual and the continuation 
of the species are not intrusted to self-love and reason 
alone, but that we are endowed with various appetites, 
which, without any reflection on our part, impel us to 
their respective objects. "We have also found, with re- 
spect to the acquisition of knowledge, (on which the 
perfection of the individual and the improvement of 
the species essentially depend,) that it is not intrusted 
solely to self-love and benevolence, but that we are 
prompted to it by the implanted principle of curiosity. 
It further appeared, that, in addition to our sense of 
duty, another incentive to worthy conduct is provided 
in the desire of esteem, which is not only one of our 
most powerful principles of action, but continues to op- 
erate in full force to the last moment of our being. 
Now, as men were plainly intended to live in society, 
and as the social union could not subsist without a 
mutual interchange of good offices, would it not be 
reasonable to expect, agreeably to the analogy of our 
nature, that so important an end would not be intrust- 
ed solely to the slow deductions of reason, or to the 
metaphysical refinements of self-love, but that some 
provision would be made for it, in a particular class of 
active principles, which might operate, like our appe- 
tites and desires, independently of our reflection ? To 
say this of parental affection or of pity is saying nothing 
more in their favor than what was affirmed of hunger 



AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 61 

and thirst, that they prompt us to particular objects 
without any reference to our own enjoyment. 

I have not offered these objections to the selfish the- 
ory with any view of exalting our natural affections 
into virtues; for, in so far as they arise from original 
constitution, they confer no merit whatever on the in- 
dividual, any more than his appetites or desires. At 
the same time, (as Dr. Reid has observed,) there is a 
manifest gradation in the sentiments of respect with 
which we regard these different constituents of char- 
acter. 

Our desires, (it was formerly observed,) although not 
virtuous in themselves, are manly and respectable, and 
plainly of greater dignity than our animal appetites. 
In like manner it may be remarked that our benevolent 
affections, although not meritorious, are highly amiable. 
A want of attention to the essential difference between 
the ideas expressed by these two words has given rise 
to much confusion in different systems- of moral philos- 
ophy, more particularly in the systems of Shaftesbury 
and Hutcheson. 

As it would lead me into too minute a detail to con- 
sider our different benevolent affections separately, I 
shall confine myself to a few detached remarks on 
some of the most important. 

The first place is undoubtedly due to what we com- 
monly call natural affection, including under the term 
the affections of parents and children, and those oi 
other near relations. 

Section II. 

OF THE AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 

I. The Parental Affection common to Animals and 
Men.] The parental affection is common to us with 
most of the brutes, although with them it is variously 
modified according to their respective natures, and ac- 
cording as the care of the parent is more or less neces- 
sary for the preservation and nurture of the young. 
6 



62 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

Cicero remarks that this is no more than might have 
been expected from that beneficent providence every- 
where conspicuous in nature. " Hsec inter se congru- 
ere non possunt, ut natura et procreari vellet et diligi 
procreatos non curaret."* — "Commune animantium 
omnium est conjunction is appetitus, et cura quaedam 
eorum quas procreata sunt."f 

When I ascribe parental affection to our own spe- 
cies, I do not mean to insinuate that there is any foun- 
dation for those stories which poets have feigned, of 
particular discriminating feelings which have enabled 
parents and children, after a long absence, or when 
they have never met before, mutually to recognize each 
other. The parental affection takes its rise from a 
knowledge of the relation in which the parties stand, 
and it is very powerfully confirmed by habit. Ail that 
I assert is, that it results naturally from that knowledge, 
and from the habits superinduced by the relation which 
the parties bear to each other ; in which sense it may 
be justly said, (to adopt a beautiful and philosophical 
expression of Dr. Ferguson's,) that "natural affection 
springs up in the soul as the milk springs in the breast 
of the mother." J Accordingly, it operates, in a great 
measure, independently of reflection and of a sense of 
duty. Reason, indeed, might satisfy a man that his 
children are particularly intrusted to his care, and that 
it is his duty to rear and educate them, — as reason 
might have induced him to eat and drink w T ithout the 
appetites of hunger and thirst ; but reason cannot cre- 
ate an affection any more than an appetite. And, con- 
sidering how little the conduct of mankind is in gen- 
eral influenced by a sense of duty, there are good 
grounds for thinking, that, were not reason in this case 
aided by a very powerful implanted principle, a very 



* De Finibus, III. 19. "Nature would have been inconsistent if she 
had intended men to procreate. Avithout providing at the same time that 
they should love their offspring." 

t De Offic, I. 4. " The passion which unites the sexes, and a certain 
affection for their voung, are common to all animals " 

% Principles of Moral and Political Science, Vo\. I. p. 31. 



AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 63 

small proportion out of the whole number of children 
brought into the world would arrive at maturity. 

How much this affection depends upon habit appears 
from this, that, when the care of a child is devolved 
upon one who is not its parent, the parental affection 
is, in a great measure, transferred along with it. This 
(as Dr. Reid observes) is plainly " the work of nature," 
and is an additional provision made by her for the con- 
tinuation and preservation of the species. 

The parental affection, as we have hitherto consid- 
ered it, is common to both sexes ; but it cannot, I think, 
be denied, that it is in the heart of the mother that it 
exists in the most perfect strength and beauty. In- 
deed, I do not think that those have gone too far who 
have pronounced " the heart of a good mother to be the 
masterpiece of nature's works P * There is no form, cer- 
tainly, in which humanity appears so lovely, or pre- 
sents so fair a copy of the Divine image after which it 
was made. 

II. Affections of Kindred the Foundation of our So- 
cial and Political Virtues.] Nor are these affections of 
parent and child useful solely for the preservation of 
the race. They form the heart in infancy for its more 
extensive social duties, and gradually prepare it for 
those affections which constitute the character of the 
good citizen ; not to mention that, in every period of 
life, it is our private attachments which furnish the 
most powerful of all incentives to patriotism and hero- 
ic virtue. Nothing, therefore, could be more unphilo- 
sophical than the opinion of Plato, that the indulgence 
of the domestic charities unfitted men for the discharge 
of their political duties ; an opinion which he carried so 
far as to propose, that, as soon as a child was born, it 
should be separated from its parents, and educated ever 
after at the expense of the public. It has been oftVn 
observed that persons brought up in foundling hospitals 
have seldom turned out well in the world ; and al- 

* See Marmontel. Lemons sur la Morale, p. 132, et seq. 



64 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

though I doubt not that various splendid exceptions to 
this proposition maybe quoted, I am inclined to think, 
that, if the special accidents connected with these ex- 
ceptions were fully known, ihey would be found, instead 
of invalidating, to confirm the general rule. One thing, 
at least, is obvious, that, in that best of all educations 
which nature has provided for us in the ordinary cir- 
cumstances of our condition, it formed an important 
part of her plan to soften the heart betimes amid the 
scenes of domestic life ; and, accordingly, it is under 
the shelter of these scenes that all the social virtues 
may be seen to shoot up with the greatest vigor and 
luxuriancy. Even the sterner qualities of fortitude and 
bravery, so far from being inconsistent with a warm 
and susceptible heart, are almost its inseparable attend- 
ants, insomuch that we always expect to find them unit- 
ed. How true, in this respect, to all the best feelings 
of our nature, is the beautiful story recorded of Epam- 
inondas, that, after the battle of Leuctra, he thanked 
the gods that his parents still survived to enjoy his 
fame ! 

It is remarked by Dr. Beattie that Homer and Virgil, 
the most accurate of all observers, and the most faith- 
ful of all painters of human character, always unite 
the domestic attachments with the more splendid vir- 
tues of their heroes. The scene between Hector and 
Andromache, and the interview between Ulysses and 
his father after an absence of twenty years, are pro- 
nounced by the same excellent critic to be the finest 
passages in the Iliad and Odyssey. He observes fur- 
ther, that, in the portrait of Achilles, his love to his par- 
ents forms one of the most prominent and distinguish- 
ing features, and that " this single circumstance throws 
an amiable softness into the most terrific human per- 
sonage that was ever described in poetry." How pow- 
erful a charm the iEneid derives from the same source 
it is needless to mention, as it is the chief groundwork 
of the interest inspired by the whole texture of the fa- 
ble. In no instance is it more affecting than in the ad- 
dress of Euryalus to Nisus before they set out on then 



AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 



65 



desperate expedition by night ; and I believe few will 
deny that the pious concern which he expresses for his 
aged parent in that moment of approaching peril ac- 
cords perfectly with the gallantry of his spirit, and in- 
terests us more than any thing else in his fortunes. 

" Contra quem talia fatur 
Eurvalus: me nulla dies tain fortibus ausis 
Dissimilem arguerit; tantum fortuna secunda, 
Haud ad versa cad at : sed tc super omnia dona, 
Unum oro : genetrix Priami de gente vetusta 
Est mihi, quam miseram tenuit non Ilia tellus, 
Mecum excedentem, non moenia regis Acestae : 
Hanc ego nunc ignaram hujus quodcumque pericliest 
Inque salutatam iinquo nox, et tua testis 
Dextera, quod nequeam lacrymas perferre parentis. 
At tu, oro, solare inopem, et succurre relictae. 
Hanc sine me spem ferre tui : audentior ibo 
In casus omnes. Percussa mente dederunt 
Dardanidae lacrymas : ante omnes pulcher lulus, 
Atque animum patriae strinxit pietatis imago." * 

I shall conclude this section in the words of Lord 
Bacon: — " Unmarried men are best friends, best mas- 

* JEneid., Lib. IX. 280. 

"' All of my life,' replies the youth, 'shall aim, 
Like this one hour, at everlasting fame. 
Though fortune only our attempt can bless, 
Yet still my courage shall deserve success. 
But one reward I ask, before I go, — 
The greatest I can ask, or you bestow. 
My mother, — tender, pious, fond, and good, 
Sprung, like thy own, from Priam's royal blood, — 
Such was her love, she left her native Troy, 
And fair Trinacria, for her darling boy ; 
And such is mine, that I must keep unknown 
Prom her the danger of so dear a son: 
To spare her anguish, lo ! I quit the place 
Without one parting kiss, one last embrace ! 
By night, and that respected hand, I swear, 
Her melting tears are more than I can bear ! 
For her, good prince, your pity I implore ; 
Support her, childless, and relieve her, poor; 
O, let her, let her find, (when I am gone,) 
In you, a friend, a guardian, and a son ! 
With that dear hope, emboldened shall I go, 
Brave every danger, and defy the foe.' 

" Charmed with his virtue all the Trojan peers, 
But, more than all, Asc.inius melts in tears, 
To see the sorrows of a duteous son 
And filial love, a love so like his own." 

6* 



66 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

ters, best servants, but not always best subjects, for 
they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are 
of that condition. For soldiers, I find that the gener- 
als in their hortatives commonly put men in mind of 
their wives and children; and I think the despising of 
marriage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier 
the more base. Certainly, wife and children are a kind 
of discipline of humanity; and single men, though 
they be many times more charitable, because their 
means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are 
more cruel and hard-hearted, because their tenderness is 
not so often called upon." * 

Section III. 
of friendship. 

I. Pleasures of Friendship.] Friendship, like all the 
other benevolent affections, includes two things, an 
agreeable feeling, and a desire of happiness to its object. 

Besides, however, the agreeable feeling common to 
all the exertions of benevolence, there are some pecu- 
liar to friendship. I before took notice of the pleasure 
we derive from communicating our thoughts and our 
feelings to others ; but this communication prudence 
and propriety restrain us from making to strangers ; 
and hence the satisfaction we enjoy in the society of 
one to whom we can communicate every circumstance 
in our situation, and can trust every secret of our heart. 

There is also a wonderful pleasure arising from the 
sympathy of our fellow-creatures with our joys and 
with our sorrows, nay, even with our tastes and our 
humors ; but, in the ordinary commerce of the world, 
we are often disappointed in our expectations of this 
enjoyment, — a disappointment which is peculiarly in- 
cident to men of genius and sensibility superior to the 
common, who frequently fee] themselves " alone in the 
midst of a crowd," and reduced to the necessity of ac- 

* Bacon's Essays. Of Marriage and Single Life. 



I'RIENDSHIP. 67 

comiriodating their own temper, and their own feelings, 
to a standard borrowed from those whom they cannot 
help thinking undeserving of such a sacrifice. 

It is only in the society of a friend that this sym- 
pathy is at all times to be found; and the pleasing re- 
flection, that we have it in our power to command so 
exquisite a gratification, constitutes, perhaps, the prin- 
cipal charm of this connection. " What we call affec- 
tion," says Mr. Smith, "is nothing but an habitual 
sympathy." I will not go quite so far as to adopt this 
proposition in all its latitude, but I perfectly agree with 
this profound and amiable moralist in thinking, that the 
experience of this sympathy is the chief foundation 
of friendship, and one of the principal sources of the 
pleasures which it yields. Nor is it at all inconsistent 
with this observation to remark, that, where the ground- 
work of two characters in point of moral worth is the 
same, there is sometimes a contrast in the secondary 
qualities, of taste, of intellectual accomplishments, and 
even of animal spirits, which, instead of presenting 
obstacles to friendship, has a tendency to bind more 
strongly the knot of mutual attachment between the 
parties. Two very interesting and memorable exam- 
ples of this may be found in Cuvier's account of the 
friendship between Buffon and Daubenton,* and in 
Play fair's account of the friendship between Black and 
Hutton.f 

I do not mean here to enter into the consideration 
of the various topics relating to friendship which are 
commonly discussed by writers on that subject. Most 
of these, indeed I may say all of them, are beautifully 
illustrated by Cicero in the treatise De Amicitia, in 
which he has presented us with a summary of all that 
was most valuable on this article of ethics in the 
writings of preceding philosophers ; and so compre- 
hensive is the view of it which he has taken, that the 
modern authors who have treated of it have done little 
more than to repeat his observations. 

* Recueil des Eloges Historiques. M. Daubenton. 

t Biographical Account of the late Dr. James Ilutton. Works, Vol. IV. 



DO INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

II. Can Friendship subsist beliveen more than Two 
Persons?] One question concerning friendship much 
agitated in the ancient schools was, whether this con- 
nection can subsist in its full perfection between more 
than two persons ; — and I believe it was the common 
decision of antiquity that it cannot. For my own part, 
I can see no foundation for this limitation, and I own 
it seems to me to have been suggested more by the 
dreams of romance, or the fables of ancient mythology, 
than by good sense or an accurate knowledge of man- 
kind. The passion of love between the sexes is indeed 
of an exclusive nature ; and the jealousy of the one 
party is roused the moment a suspicion arises that the 
attachment of the other is in any degree divided ; (and, 
by the way, this circumstance, which I think is strongly 
characteristical of that connection, deserves to be add- 
ed to the various other considerations which show that 
monogamy has a foundation in human nature.) But 
the feelings of friendship are of a perfectly different 
sort. If our friend is a man of discernment, we rejoice 
at every new acquisition he makes, as it affords us an 
opportunity of adding to our own list of worthy and 
amiable individuals, and we eagerly concur with him 
in promoting the interests of those who are dear to 
his heart. When we ourselves, on the other hand, 
have made a new discovery of worth and genius, how 
do we long to impart the same satisfaction to a friend, 
and to be instrumental in bringing together the various 
respectable and worthy men whom the accidents of 
life have thrown in our way ! 

I acknowledge, at the same time, that the number of 
our attached and confidential friends cannot be great, 
otherwise our attention would be too much distracted 
by the multiplicity of its objects, and the views for which 
this affection of the mind was probably implanted 
would be frustrated by its engaging us in exertions 
6eyond the extent of our limited abilities ; and, accord- 
ingly, nature has made a provision for preventing this 
inconvenience, by rendering friendship the fruit only of 
long and intimate acquaintance. It is strengthened 



FRIENDSHIP. 69 

by the acquaintance which the parties have, not only 
with each other's personal qualities, but with theii 
histories, situations, and connections from infancy, and 
every particular of this sort which falls under their 
mutual knowledge forms to the fancy an additional re- 
lation by which they are united. Men who have a 
very wide circle of friends, without much discrimination 
or preference, are justly suspected of being incapable 
of genuine friendship, and indeed are generally men of 
cold and selfish characters, who are influenced chiefly 
by a cool and systematical regard to their own comfort, 
and who value the social intercourse of life only as it is 
subservient to their accommodation and amusement. 

III. How we are affected by the Distresses of our 
Friends.] That the affection of friendship includes a 
desire of happiness to the beloved object, it is unne- 
cessary to observe. There is, however, a certain limita- 
tion of the remark, which occurs among the Maxims of 
La Rochefoucauld, and which has been often repeated 
since by misanthropical moralists, " That, in the dis- 
tresses of our best friends, there is always something 
which does not displease us." It may be proper to 
consider in what sense this is to be understood, and how 
far it has a foundation in truth. It is expressed in 
somewhat equivocal terms ; and, I suspect, owes much 
of its plausibility to this very circumstance. 

From the triumphant air with which the maxim in 
question has been generally quoted by the calumniators 
of human nature, it has evidently been supposed by 
them to imply that the misfortunes of our best friends 
give us more pleasure than pain.* But this La Roche- 
foucauld has not said, nor, indeed, could a proposition 
so obviously false and extravagant have escaped the pen 

* It was plainly in this sense that Swift understood it when he prefixed 
it as a motto to the verses on his own death. 

"As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew 
From nature, I helieve them true. 
If what he says be not a joke, 
We mortals arc stranjre kind of folk." 



70 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

of so acute a writer. "What La Rochefoucauld has 
said amounts only to this, that, in the distresses of our 
best friends, the pain we feel is not altogether unmix- 
ed ; — a proposition unquestionably true, wherever we 
have an opportunity of soothing their sorrows by th *. 
consolations of sympathy, or of evincing, by more sub 
stantial services, the sincerity and strength of our at- 
tachment. But the pleasure we experience in such 
cases, so far from indicating any thing selfish or 
malevolent in the heart, originates in principles of a 
directly opposite description, and will be always most 
pure and exquisite in the most disinterested and gen- 
erous characters. The maxim, indeed, when thus in- 
terpreted, is not less true when applied to our own 
distresses than to those of our friends. In the bitterest 
cup that may fall to the lot of either, there are always 
mingled some cordial drops, — in the misfortunes of 
others, the consolation of administering' relief, — in our 
own, that of receiving it from the sympathy of those 
we love. 

Whether La Rochefoucauld, in the satirical humor 
which dictated the greater part of his maxims, did not 
wish, in the present instance, to convey by his words a 
little more than meets the ear, I do not presume to de- 
termine. 

Section IV. 

OF PATRIOTISM. 

I. Provision made for a Division of Mankind into 
distinct Communities.] Notwithstanding the principles 
of union implanted by nature in the human breast, it 
was plainly not her intention that society should always 
go on increasing in numbers. A foundation is laid for 
a division of mankind into distinct communities, in 
those natural divisions on the surface of the globe that 
are formed by chains of mountains, impassable rivers, 
and the oceans which separate the larger continents ; and 
the same end is further answered by those principles of 



PATRIOTISM. 71 

enmity which, in the earlier stages of society, never 
fail to estrange neighbouring tribes from each other 
and which continue to operate with a very powerful 
effect even in periods of knowledge and refinement. 

I shall not at present attempt to analyze particularly 
the origin of these principles of disunion among man- 
kind. I shall only remark, that they do not imply any 
original malignity in the human heart; on the contrary, 
they seem to have their source in the social nature of 
man, — in those affections which attach him to the 
tribe he belongs to, and to the country which gave him 
birth. This remark has been so excellently illustrated 
by Lord Shaftesbury and by Dr. Ferguson, that it 
would be quite superfluous to enlarge upon it here. 
Contenting myself, therefore, with a reference to their 
works,* I shall proceed to some other views of the sub- 
ject, where the field of observation does not seem to be 
so completely exhausted. 

* See Shaftesbury's Essay on the Freedom, of Wit and Humor, Part III. 
Sect. 2, and Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, Part I. Sect. 
4. The former observes : — '' It is strange to imagine that war, which of 
all things appears the most savage, should be the passion of the most he- 
roic spirits. But it is in war that the knot of fellowship is closest drawn. 
It is in war that mutual succor is most given, mutual danger run, and 
common affection most exerted and employed. Por heroism and philan- 
thropy are almost one and the same. Yet, by a small misguidance of 
the affection, a lover of mankind becomes a ravager ; a hero and deliverer 
becomes an oppressor and destroyer." " Vast empires are in many re- 
spects unnatural ; but particularly in this, that, be they ever so well consti- 
tuted, the affairs of many must in such governments turn upon a very few; 
and the relation be less sensible, and in a manner lost, between the magis- 
trate and people, in a body so unwieldy in its limbs, and whose members 
lie so remote from one another, and distant from the head. It is in such 
bodies as these that strong factions are aptest to engender. The associat- 
ing spirits, for want of exercise, form new movements, and seek a nar- 
rower sphere of activity, when they want action in a greater. Thus we 
have wheels within wheels. And in some national constitutions, (notwith- 
standing the absurdity in politics,) we have one empire within another. 
Nothing is so delightful as to incorporate." In the same strain Ferguson : 
— " The titles of fellow-citizen and countryman, unopposed by those of alien 
and foreigner, to which they refer, would fall into disuse, and lose their 
meaning. We love individuals on account of personal qualities : but we 
love our country, as it is a party in the divisions of mankind ; and our 
zeal for its interests is a predilection in behalf of the side we maintain." 
•* ' My father,' said a Spanish peasant, ' would rise from his grave, if he 
could foresee a war with France.' What interest had he, or the bones of 
his father, in the quarrels of princes ? " 



72 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

The foundation which nature has laid for a diversity 
of languages, of customs, of manners, and of institu- 
tions among mankind, adds force to the principles of 
division and repulsion already mentioned. These cir- 
cumstances derive their effect, indeed, from the igno- 
rance of men, which is apt to mistake a diversity of 
arbitrary signs and arbitrary ceremonies for a diversity 
of opinions and of moral sentiments ; and accordingly, 
as society advances, and reason improves, the effect be- 
comes gradually less and less sensible. As the effect, 
however, is universal among rude nations, and as it is 
the unavoidable result of the general laws of our con- 
stitution when placed in certain circumstances, we may 
consider it as a part of the plan of Providence with re- 
spect to our species ; and we may presume that here, 
as in other instances, that plan tends ultimately to 
some wise and beneficent purpose, though by means 
which appear to us, at first view, to have a very unfa- 
vorable aspect. What these purposes are it is impossi- 
ble for our limited faculties to trace completely ; but 
even we, narrow and partial as our views at present 
are, may perceive some salutary consequences resulting 
from these apparent disorders of the moral world. 1 
shall only mention the tendency which a constant state 
of hostility and alarm must have among barbarous 
tribes to bind and consolidate in each of them apart 
the political union ; and, by strengthening the hands 
of government, to prepare the way for the progress of 
society. We may add, the exercise which it gives to 
many of our most important moral principles, and the 
powerful stimulus it applies to our intellectual capaci- 
ties. The discipline is indeed rough, but it is perhaps 
the only one of which the mind of man, in a certain 
state of his progress, is susceptible. 

II. Tendency of Civilization to diminish the Causes of 
Disunion.] If these observations are well founded, may 
we not presume to offer a conjecture, that, as this final 
cause ceases to exist in proportion as government ad- 
vances to maturity, and as the moral causes of hostili- 



PATRIOTISM. 



73 



ty among nations (arising from diversity of language 
and of manners) cease to operate upon men of enlight- 
ened and liberal minds, the tendency of civilized socie- 
ty is to diminish the dissensions among different com- 
munities, and to unite the human race in the bonds of 
amity? The just views of political economy which 
Mr. Smith and some other authors have lately opened, 
and which demonstrate the absurdity of commercial 
jealousies, all contribute to encourage the same pleas- 
ing prospect; but, alas! it is a prospect, which the 
vices and prejudices of men allow us to indulge only 
in those moments of enthusiasm when our benevolent 
wishes for mankind, and our confidence in the wisdom 
and goodness of Providence, transport us from the ca- 
lamities and atrocities of our own times, to anticipate 
the triumphs of reason and humanity in a more fortu- 



nate age. 



In my Philosophy of the Human Mind I have remark- 
ed, that " there are many prejudices which are found to 
prevail universally among our species in certain periods 
of society, and which seem to be essentially necessary 
for maintaining its order in ages when men are unable 
to comprehend the purposes for which governments are 
instituted. As society advances, these prejudices grad- 
ually lose their influence on the higher classes, and 
would probably soon disappear altogether, if it were 
not supposed to be expedient to prolong their existence 
as a source of authority over the multitude. In an age, 
however, of universal and unrestrained discussion, it is 
impossible that they can long maintain their empire; 
nor ought we to regret their decline, if the important 
ends to which they have been subservient in the past 
experience of mankind are found to be accomplished 
by the growing light of philosophy. On this supposi- 
tion, a history of human prejudices, in so far as they 
have supplied the place of more enlarged political 
views, may, at some future period, furnish to the phi- 
losopher a subject of speculation no less pleasing and 
instructive than that beneficent wisdom of nature 
which guides the operations of the lower animals, and 
7 



74 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

which, even in our own species, takes upon itself the 
care of the individual in the infancy of human reason." * 

The remarks which have been now made on the 
sources of disunion and hostility among mankind in 
the earlier periods of society, and on the final causes to 
which this constitution of things is subservient, atford 
one remarkable illustration of the conjecture which I 
have hazarded in the foregoing passage. 

Before proceeding to consider the affection of patri- 
otism, it was necessary to turn our attention for a mo- 
ment to the principles of disunion in our species, as the 
idea of patriotism proceeds on the supposition, that 
mankind are divided into distinct communities, with 
separate, if not with rival and hostile interests. 

III. Exciting' Causes of Patriotism.] The exciting 
causes of patriotism (abstracted from all considera- 
tions of reason and duty) are many. We are formed 
with so strong a disposition to associate with and to 
love our own species, that the imagination lays hold 
with eagerness of every circumstance, how slight so- 
ever, that can form a bond of union ; a common lan- 
guage, a common religion, common laws, even a com- 
mon appellation, — not to mention the prudential con- 
siderations of common enemies and a common interest. 
The feelings which these uniting circumstances inspire 
attach us even to the territory which our fellow-citizens 
inhabit, by the same law of association that endears to 
us the spot where a friend was born, or the scene 
where we have enjoyed any social pleasure ; and thus 
the imagination forms to itself a complex idea of court* 
trymen and country, which impresses every susceptible 
heart with irresistible force. In perusing the history of 
either, how remote soever the period it describes may 
be, we feel an interest which no other narrative inspires. 
We sympathize with the fortunes of those who trod the 
same ground that we now tread, and we appropriate to 
ourselves a share of the glory they acquired by their 

* Part I. Chap. iv. Sect. viii. 



PATRIOTISM. 7& 

bravery and virtue. " When the late Mr. Anson (Lord 
Anson's brother) was on his travels in the East, he 
hired a vessel to visit the Isle of Tenedos. His pilot, 
an old Greek, as they were sailing along, said with 
some satisfaction, "T was there our fleet lay.' Mr. 
Anson demanded, 'What fleet?' ' WJiat fleet . n replied 
the old man, a little piqued at the question, 'why, our 
Grecian fleet at the siege of Troy.' " This anecdote, 
(which I borrow from the Philological Inquiries of Mr. 
Harris,*) naturally excites a smile ; but it is, at the same 
time, so congenial to feelings inseparable from our con- 
stitution, that its effect seems to me to border on the 
pathetic, and I presume there are few who have read it 
without some emotion. 

It is not a little remarkable, with respect to this nat- 
ural attachment to the scenes of our infancy and youth, 
that it is commonly strongest among the inhabitants 
of barren and mountainous countries. This would ap- 
pear to indicate that it is produced less by the recollec- 
tion of agreeable physical impressions than of moral 
pleasures, — pleasures which probably derive an ad- 
ditional zest from the absence of those interesting or 
amusing objects which dissipate the attention by invit- 
ing the thoughts abroad. Where nature has been spar- 
ing in her external bounty, men become the more de- 
pendent for their happiness on internal enjoyment; it 
is thus that the storms and gloom of winter give a high- 
er relish to the pleasures of society. Perhaps, too, the 
thin and scattered population of such countries may 
contribute something to the romantic enthusiasm of the 
domestic and private attachments, as it is certain that 
the opposite extreme of a crowded and busy population 
seldom fails to extinguish all the more ardent social af- 
fections. Among the inhabitants of Europe this attach- 
ment to home is said to be the most remarkable in the 
Swiss and the Laplanders, who, when removed to a dis- 
tance from their native scenes, are subject to a particu- 
lar species of despondency, to which medical writers 

* Part III. Chap. v. 



76 



INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 



have given the name of nostalgia. It is thus described 
by Ha Her, who was himself a native of Switzerland, 
and who, in some of his poetical pieces, composed dur 
ing the period of his academical studies in Holland, 
has sufficien.ly shown that his own heart was not proof 
against its influence. 

" Nostalgia genus est moeroris subditis reipublicse mea? 
familiaris, etiam civibus, a desiderio nati suorum. Is 
sensim ocmsamit segros et destruit, nonnunquam in 
rigorem et maniam abit, alias in febres lentas. Euro 
spes sanat. Etiam animalia consueta societate privata, 
nonnunquam depereunt, et ex pullis amissis etiam lutne 
maris Kamtschadalensis. Sic ex amore frustrato lenta 
et insanabilis consumptio sequitur, quod Angli cor rup- 
tum vocant." * 

We are informed by another medical writer, (Sauva- 
ges,) that he has known this disorder in the son of a 
common beggar, who could scarcely be said to have any 
home but the streets and public roads.f 

" Thus every good his native wilds impart 
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart. 
And even the ills that round his mansion rise 
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. 
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
And dear that hill that lifts him to the storms. 
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
Clings close and closer to its mother's breast, 
So the loud tempest and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more." % 

The sources of patriotism hitherto mentioned arise 
chiefly from the imagination and from the association of 
ideas, and h;ive little or no connection with our rational 
and moral powers. They presuppose, indeed, sensibility, 
social attachment, and force of mind, but they do not 

* E/em. Physiol., Lib. XVII. Sect. 2, § 5. " Nostalgia is a malady com- 
mon among my countrymen, originating in a longing for home. It grad- 
ually consumes and wears out the patient, sometimes going off in chills 
and mania, sometimes in a slow fever. Hope cures it. Even animals, 
when deprived of their accustomed companions, will sometimes die ; as is 
the case with the sea-otter of Kamtschatka when bereft of her young. So, 
likewise, a lingering and incurable consumption follows disappointed lovO) 
which the English call a broken heart. 1 ' 

t Nosologia Mcthodica. $ Goldsmith's Traveller. 



PATRIOTISM. 77 

necessarily imply reflection or a sense of duty. They 
are the natural result of our constitution when placed 
in certain circumstances ; and hence, though not coeval 
with our birth, nor after their appearance unsusceptible 
of analysis, the affection they produce, in so far as it 
arises from them without the cooperation of any other 
motive, may be considered as a blind impulse, analogous 
in its operation to those desires and appetites which 
have been already mentioned. This affection may be 
called, for the sake of distinction, instinctive patriotism. 

IV. Patriotism in Small and in Large Countries.] 
The circumstances which have been enumerated as the 
sources of instinctive patriotism operate with peculiar 
force in small communities, where the extent of the ter- 
ritory and the body of the people, falling under the 
habitual observation of every citizen, present more defi- 
nite objects to the imagination, and affect the heart 
more deeply, than what is only conceived from descrip- 
tion. Here, too, the individual feels his importance as 
an active member of the state, and the consciousness 
of what he is able to do for its prosperity contributes 
powerfully to promote his patriotic exertions. 

In an extensive and populous country, the instinctive 
affection of patriotism is apt to grow languid among 
the mass of the people, and therefore it becomes the 
more necessary to impress on their minds those consid- 
erations of reason and duty which recommend public 
spirit as one of the principal branches of morality. 
What these considerations are, I shall afterwards en- 
deavour to point out in treating of the duties we owe 
to our fellow-creatures. At present I shall only remark, 
that, as instinctive patriotism decays, so rational patriot- 
ism acquires force, in proportion to the extent of terri- 
tory and to the multitude of fellow-citizens it embraces ; 
in other words, in proportion to the magnitude of that 
sum of happiness which it aspires to secure and to 
augment. 

Such considerations, however, can have weight only 

with men whose sense of duty is strong ; and as } un« 

7 , 



78 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

fortunately, this is not the case with a great proportion 
of mankind, it is of the utmost consequence, in every 
state of society, to cherish as much as possible the in- 
stinctive aifection of patriotism, and to counteract those 
causes that tend to extinguish it. For this purpose, 
nothing is more likely to be effectual than to diffuse a 
general taste for historical and geographical reading. 
A peasant who has never extended his thoughts beyond 
his own province, and who sees every thing flourishing 
and happy around him, is apt to consider the enjoy- 
ments he possesses as inseparable from the human race, 
and no more connected with any particular system of 
laws than the advantages he derives from the immedi- 
ate bounty of nature. It is the study of history and 
geography alone that can remove this prejudice, by show- 
ing us, on the one hand, the narrow limits within which 
the political happiness of our species has hitherto been 
confined, and, on the other, the singular combination of 
accidental circumstances to which we are indebted for 
the blessings we enjoy. This effect of history, indeed, 
tends rather to cherish rational than instinctive patriot- 
ism ; but it operates also wonderfully on the latter affec- 
tion, by leading us to contrast our own country and coun- 
trymen with other lands and other nations, and thereby 
presenting a more definite and interesting object to the 
imagination and to the heart. When, from the trans- 
actions of past ages and of foreign lands, we return to 
what is near and familiar, we are affected somewhat in 
the same manner as if we met with a fellow-citizen in 
a distant country. Absence from home never fails to en- 
dear it to a mind possessed of any sensibility. The extent 
of our country, too, seems to diminish to our intellectual 
eye in proportion as the object recedes from us, and we 
feel a sensible relation to what we before regarded with 
complete indifference. The natives- of the same coun- 
try in Scotland feel towards each other a partial pre* 
di lection when they meet in the metropolis of Great 
Britain ; and the circumstance of being born in this 
island forms a tie of friendship between individuals in 
the other quarters of the globe. The study of hist< rv 



PATRIOTISM. 7\* 

operates somewhat in the same manner, though not 
perhaps in the same degree. By transporting us in im- 
agination over the surface of this planet, and by as- 
sembling before our view the myriads who have occu- 
pied it before us, it serves to define to our thoughts 
more distinctly the particular community to which we 
belong, and strengthens the bond of relationship that 
unites us to all its members. 

I shall only add further on this subject, that, when 
the extent and population of a country are so very 
great as to give it a decided preeminence among neigh- 
bouring nations, it has a tendency to produce (partly 
by interesting the vanity, and partly by dazzling the 
imagination) an attachment to national glory, which 
operates both on the vulgar and on men of better edu- 
cation in a way extremely analogous to the instinctive 
patriotism felt by the member of a small community. 
A remarkable instance of this occurred in the national 
character of the French prior to the late revolution ; nor 
does it seem to have altered in this respect since that 
event, if we may judge from the indignation with which 
the idea of a confederate republic has always been re- 
ceived. A feeling of the same kind may be traced in 
various expressions employed by Livy in the preface 
to his Roman History. M Utcunque erit, juvabit tamen 
rerum gestarum memorise principis terramm populi, pro 
virili parte, et ipsum consuluisse ; et si in tanta scrip- 
torum turba mea fama in obscuro sit, nobilitate ac 
magnitudine eorum qui nomini officient meo me con- 
soler. Res est praeterea et immensi operis, ut quae supra 
septingentesimum annum repetatur, et quse ab exiguis 
profecta initiis eo creverit, ut jam magnitudine laboret 
sua: et legentium plerisque haud dubito, quin prima? 
origines proximaque originibus, minus pra?bitura vo- 
luptatis sint, festinantibus ad hsec nova, quibus jam- 
pridem praevalentis populi vires se ipsa? conficiunt." * 

* " However that may be, I shall at all events derive no small satisfac- 
tion from the reflection that my best endeavours have been exerted in trans- 
mitting to posterity the achievements of the greatest people in the world ; 
and if, amidst such a multitude of writers, my name ^'jould not emerge 



80 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

The very danger which such an empire was exposed to 
from its enormous magnitude, and from the seeds of 
destruction which it carried in its bosom, seems to 
heighten the patriotic affection of the historian, by 
awakening an anxious solicitude for its impending fate. 
The contrast between this feeling of national pride, and 
a melancholy anticipation of those calamities to which 
national greatness leads, gives the principal charm to 
this exquisite composition. 

Section V. 

OF PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 

I. Office and important Uses of Compassion.] As the 
unfortunate chiefly stand in need of our assistance, so 
there is provided in every breast a most powerful advo- 
cate in their favor ; an advocate, to whose solicitations 
it is impossible even for the most obdurate to turn always 
a deaf ear. The appropriation of the word humanity to 
this part of our constitution affords sufficient evidence 
of the common sentiments of mankind upon the subject. 

" Mollissima corda 
Humano generi dare se natura fatetur, 
Quae lacrymas dedit. Hsec nostri pars optima sensus. 

Separat hoc nos 

A grege mutorum." * 



from obscurity, I shall console myself by considering tbe distinguished 
reputation and eminent merit of those who stand in my way in the pursuit 
of fame. It may be further observed, that such a subject must require a 
work of immense extent, as our researches must be carried back through 
a space of more than seven hundred years ; that the state has, from very 
small beginnings, gradually increased to such a magnitude that it is now 
distressed by its own bulk ; and, besides, that there is every reason to ap- 
prehend that the generality of readers will receive but little pleasure from 
the accounts of its first origin, or of the times immediately succeeding, but 
will be impatient to arrive at these modern times, in which the powers of 
this overgrown state have been long employed in working their own de« 
struction." 

* Juv., Sat. XV. 131, 142. 

" Nature, who gave us tears, by that alone 

Proclaims she made the feeling heart our own ; 

And 't is our noblest sense 

This marks our birth ; 

Our great distinction from the beasts of earth." 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 81 

The general principle of benevolence, or of good- 
will to our fellow-creatures, (of which I shall treat after- 
wards, when I come to consider our moral duties,) as it 
disposes us to promote the happiness of others, so it 
restrains us from doing them evil, and prompts us to 
relieve their distresses. The office of compassion or 
pity is more limited. It impels us to relieve distress ; 
it serves as a check on resentment and selfishness, and 
the other principles which lead us to injure the interests 
of others ; but it does not prompt us to the communi- 
cation of positive happiness. Its object is to relieve, 
and sometimes to prevent, suffering; but not to aug- 
ment the enjoyment of those who are already easy and 
comfortable. We are disposed to do this by the gen- 
eral spirit of benevolence, but not by the particular af- 
fection of pity. 

The final cause of this constitution of our nature is 
very ingeniously and happily pointed out by Dr. Butler 
in his second sermon On Compassion. This profound 
philosopher observes, that, " supposing men to be capa- 
ble of happiness and of misery in degrees equally in- 
tense, yet they are liable to the latter during longer peri- 
ods of time than they are susceptible of the former. 
We frequently see men suffering the agonies of pain 
for days, weeks, and months together, without any in- 
termission, except the short suspensions of sleep, — a 
stretch of misery to which no state of high enjoyment 
can approach in point of duration. Such, too, is our 
constitution, and that of the world around us, that the 
sources of our sufferings are placed much more within 
the power of other men than the sources of our pleas- 
ures, so that there is no individual (however incapable 
lie may be to add to the happiness of his fellow-crea- 
tures) who has it not in his power to do them great and 
extensive mischief. To prevent the abuse of this power 
when we are under the influence of any of the angry 
passions, by means of a particular affection tending to 
check Ihe excess of resentment, was, therefore, of more 
3onsequence to the comfort of human life than it would 
bave been to superadd to the general principle of good- 



82 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

will a particular affection prompting to the communis 
cation of positive enjoyment. The power we have over 
the misery of our fellow-creatures being a more impor- 
tant trust than our power of promoting the happiness 
of those already comfortable, the former stood more in 
need of a guard to check its excesses than the latter of 
a stimulus to animate its exertions. But, further, as it 
is more in our power to communicate misery than hap- 
piness, so it is more in our power to relieve misery than 
to superadd enjoyment. Hence an additional reason 
for implanting in our constitution the affection of com- 
passion, while there is none analogous to it urging us by 
an instinctive impulse to acts of general benevolence." 

The final causes of compassion, then, are to prevent 
and to relieve misery, — to prevent misery by checking 
the violence of our own angry passions, and to relieve 
misery by calling our attention, and engaging our good 
offices, to every object of distress within our reach. 
The latter is the more common and the more impor- 
tant of its offices, at least in the present state of society. 
And it is this which I have chiefly in view in the fol- 
lowing observations. 

I have said that compassion calls or arrests our atten- 
tion to the distressed objects within our reach. When 
we are immersed in the business of the world, or intox- 
icated with its pleasures, we are apt to overlook, and 
sometimes to withdraw from, scenes of misery. It is 
the office of compassion to plead the cause of the 
wretched, or rather to solicit us to take their case under 
our consideration ; for so strong is the sense which all 
men have of the duty of beneficence, that, if they could 
only be brought to exercise their powers of reflection 
on the facts before them, they could scarcely ever fail 
to relieve distress, when, in consistency with other ob- 
ligations, it was in their power to do so. One striking 
proof of this ip, that the active zeal of humanity is 
(cceteris paribus) strongest in those men whose warm 
imaginations present to them lively pictures of the suf- 
ferings of others ; and that there is scarcely any man, 
however callous and selfish, whose beneficence may not 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 8t> 

be called forth by a skilful and eloquent description of 
any scene of misery. General considerations with re- 
gard to our social duties will often have little weight ; 
but if the attention can only be fixed to facts, nature, 
in most instances, accomplishes the rest. ■ Hence the 
importance in our constitution of the affection of com- 
passion, which, amidst the tumult of business or of 
pleasure, stops us suddenly in our career, and reminds 
us that we have social duties to fulfil ; calls upon us to 
examine the claims of the helpless, and aggravates our 
guilt if we disregard its admonition. 

II. An Instinctive, and not, in itself, a Moral Princi- 
ple.'] Compassion, according to the view now given 
of it, is an instinctive impulse prompting to a particular 
object, analogous in many respects to the animal appe- 
tites already considered. It is, indeed, one of the most 
amiable, and one of the most important parts of our 
constitution ; but it is not an object of moral approba- 
tion. Our duty lies in the proper regulation of it, — in 
considering with attention the facts it recommends to 
our notice, and in acting with respect to them as reason 
and conscience prescribe. It is hardly necessary for me 
to add, that there are cases in which these inform us 
that we ought not to follow the impulse of compassion, 
and in which it is no less meritorious in us to resist its 
solicitations than to deny ourselves the unlawful grati- 
fication of a sensual appetite ; and even in those in- 
stances in which our duty calls us to obey its impulse, 
our merit does not arise from the affection we feel, but 
from doing what our conscience approves of as right, 
on a deliberate consideration of the action we are to 
pen-form, when examined in all its bearings and con- 
sequences. 

Notwithstanding, however, the unquestionable truth 
of this theoretical conclusion, it is nevertheless certain, 
that a strong and habitual tendency to indulge this af- 
fection affords no slight presumption in favor of the 
worth and benevolence of a character. Whoever re* 
fleets, on the one hand, upon its general coincidence 



84 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

with what a sense of duty prescribes, and, upon the 
other, on the nature of those circumstances by which 
'ts indulgence is checked and discouraged among men 
of the world, will, I apprehend, readily assent to the 
truth of this observation. The poet, perhaps, went a 
little too far when he stated, as a general and unquali- 
fied maxim,'Aya(9ot dpidaKpvts avdpes ; * but, upon the whole, 
I am inclined to think that this maxim, with all the ex- 
ceptions which may contradict it, will be found much 
nearer to the fact than they who have been trained in 
the schools of fashionable persiflage will be disposed to 
acknowledge. 

III. The Affection of Pity not a Modification of Self- 
love.] The philosophers who attempt to resolve the 
whole of human conduct into self-love have adopted 
various theories to explain the affection of pity. With- 
out stopping to examine these, I shall confine myself 
to a simple statement of the fact, which statement will 
at once show how far all of these are erroneous, and 
will point out the oversight in which they have origi- 
nated. Whoever reflects carefully on the effect pro- 
duced on his own mind by objects which excite his 
pity must be sensible that it is a compounded one ; and 
therefore, unless we are at pains to analyze it carefully, 
we may be apt to mistake some one of the ingredients 
for the whole combination. 



* "Good men are prone to shed tears." — " The poets," says Mr. Wot- 
laston, " who of all writers undertake to imitate nature most, oft introduce 
even their heroes weeping. (See how Homer represents Ulysses, Od. t E 
151 et seq.) The tears of men are in truth very different from the cries 
and ejulations of children. They are silent streams, and flow from other 
causes, commonly some tender, or perhaps philosophical reflection. It is 
easy to see how hard hearts and dry eyes come to be fashionable. But for 
all that, it is certain the glandules lacrymales are not made for nothing." 
Religion of Nature Delineated, Sect. VI. § xvii. 

It is also remarked by Descartes, that the tears of children and of old 
men (m which both are apt to indulge) flow from different sources. " Scnes 

srepe lacrymantur ex amore et gaudio Infantes raro ex lastitia 

lacrymantur, ssepius ex tristitia, etiam quam amor non comitatur." (De 
I'assionibus, Secunda Pars, Art. exxxiii.) The important facts here de- 
scribed have seldom been remarked ; and the statement of them does honor 
to Descartes, as an attentive and accurate observer of human nature in the 
beginning and towards the close of its history. 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 



85 



On the sight of distress we are distinctly conscious, 
I think, of threa things: — 1st. A painful emotion in 
consequence of the distress we see. 2d. A selfish 
desire to remove the cause of this uneasiness. 3d. A 
disposition to relieve the distress from a benevolent and 
disinterested concern about the sufferer. If we had 
not this last disposition, and \i it were not stronger 
than the former, the sight of a distressed object would 
invariably prompt us to rly from it, as we frequently 
see those men do in whom the second ingredient pre- 
vails over the third. In ordinary cases, the impulse of 
pity attaches us to the cause of* our sufferings; and we 
cling to it, even although we are conscious that we can 
afford no relief but the consolation of sympathy; — a 
demonstrative proof that one at least of the ingredients 
of pity (and in most men the prevailing ingredient) is 
purely disinterested in its nature and origin.* 

* There is a passage in Hazlitt's Essays on the Principles of Human 
Action, 2d ed., pp. 131 et seq., which exposes a common fallacy on this 
subject. " It is absurd to say, that, in compassionating the distress of 
others, we are only affected by our own pain and uneasiness, since this 
vpry pain arises from our compassion. It is putting the effect before the 
cause. Before I can be affected by my own pain, I must be put in pain. 
Jf T am affected by, or feel pain and sorrow at, an idea existing in my 
mind, which idea is neither pain itself nor an idea of my own pain, in 
what sense can this be called the love of myself? Again, I am equally at 
a loss to conceive how, if the pain which this idea gives me does not impel 
me to get rid of it as it gives me pain, or as it actually affects myself as 
a distinct, momentary impression, but as it is connected with other ideas, 
that is, is supposed to affect another, — hoAV, I say, this can be considered 
as the effect of self-love. The object, effort, or struggle of the mind is not 
to remove the idea or immediate feeling of pain from the [sympathizing] 
individual, or to put a stop to that feeling as it affects his tempoi'ary 
interest, but to produce a disconnection (whatever it may cost him) be- 
tween certain ideas of other things existing in his mind, namely, the idea 
of pain and the idea of another person. Self, mere physical self, is 
entirely forgotten, both practically and consciously. 

" ' 0, but,' it will be said, ' I cannot help feeling pain when I see another 
in actual pain, or get rid of the idea by any other means than by relieving 
the person, and knowing that it exists no longer.' But will this prove 
that my love of others is regulated by my love of myself, or that my self- 
love is subservient to my love of others'? What hinders me from im- 
mediately removing the painful idea from my mind but that sympathy 
with others which stands in the way of it? That this independent attach- 
ment to the good of others is a natural, unavoidable feeling of the human 
mind is what I do not wish to deny. It is also, if you will, a mechanical 
feeling; but then it is neither a physical nor a selfish mechanism. I see 
S 



86 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

Although, however, this observation seems to me 
decisive against the theory in question, in whatever 
form it may be proposed, I cannot omit this opportu- 
nity of examining a new modification of the same 
hypothesis, which occurs in Mr. Smith's Theory of 
Moral Sentiments. The view of the subject which he 
has taken has the merit of entire originality, and, like 
all his other speculations and opinions, derives a strong 
recommendation from the splendid abilities and ex- 
emplary worth of the author. I hope, therefore, that 
the critical strictures upon it which I am now to offer 
will not be considered* as a useless or unreasonable 
interruption of the discussions in which we are at 
present engaged. 

Before entering on this argument, I shall just men- 
tion another hypothesis concerning the origin of com- 
passion, which seems to me to approach more nearly 
to that of Mr Smith than any thing else I have met 
with in the works of his predecessors. I allude to the 
account of pity given by Hobbes, who defines it to be 
" the imagination or fiction of future calamity to our- 



colors, hear sounds, feci heat and cold, and believe that two and two make 
four, by a certain mechanism, or from the necessary structure of the 
human mind ; but it does not follow that all this has any thing to do with 
self-love. One half of the process, namely, the connecting the sense of 
pain with the idea of it, is evidently contrary to self-love ; nor do I see 
any more reason for ascribing to that principle the uneasiness, or active 
impulse vihich follows, since my own good is neither thought of in it. nor 
follows from it except indirectly, slowly, and conditionally. The mechan- 
ical tendency to my own ease or gratification is so far from being the real 
spring o: natural motive of compassion, that it is constantly overruled and 
defeated by it. 

" Lastly, should any desperate metaphysician persist in affirming that 
my love of others is still the love of myself, because the impression 
exciting my sympathy must exist in my mind and so be a part of myself, 
I should answer that this is using words without affixing any distinct 
meaning to them. The love or affection excited by any general idea 
existing in my mind can no more be said to be the love of myself, than 
the idea of another person is the idea of myself because it is I who per- 
ceive it. This method of reasoning, however, will not go a great way 
to prove the doctrine of an abstract principle of self-interest, for by 
the same rule it would follow that I hate myself in hating any other 
person." 

From the preceding extract it will be seen that Hazl itt does not concede 
so much as Stewart to self-love. — Ed. 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 87 

selves proceeding from the sense of another man's ca- 
lamity."* In what respect this theory coincides with 
Mr. Smith's will appear from the remarks I am about 
to make. In the mean time, I shall only observe how 
completely the futility of Hobbes's definition is exposed 
by a single remark of Butler, that, if it were just, it 
would follow that the most fearful temper would be 
the most compassion ate.f We may add, too, that our 
pity is more strongly excited by the distresses of an 
infant than by those of the aged, although the former 
are such as we cannot possibly be exposed to suffer a 
second time, and the latter such as we must expect to 
endure sooner or later, if the period of life should be 
prolonged to that term which the weakness of most in- 
dividuals disposes them to wish for. 

IV. Adam Smith's Theory of Pity.] The leading 
principles of Mr. Smith's theory, in as far as it applies 
to pity or compassion, are comprehended in the three 
following propositions: — 

1st. That it is from our own experience alone we 
can form any idea of the sufferings of another person 
on any particular occasion. 

2d. That the only manner in which we can form 
this idea is by supposing ourselves in the same circum- 
stances with him, and then conceiving how we should 
be affected if we were so situated. 

3d. That the uneasiness which we feel in conse- 
quence of the sufferings of another arises from our 
conceiving those sufferings to be our own. 

The first of these propositions is unquestionable. 
Our notions of pain and of suffering are undoubt- 
edly derived, in the first instance, from our own experi- 
ence. 

The second, proposition is perhaps expressed with too 
great a degree of latitude. That, in order to under* 



* Unman Nature, Chap ix. § 10. 

t See an excellent note on Sermon V. It contains an importanl 
hint about sympathy, which Mr. Smith has prosecuted with great in- 
genuity. 



OO INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

stand completely the sufferings of our neighbours in 
any particular instance, it is necessary for us to have 
been once placed in circumstances somewhat similar to 
his, I believe to be true, and there can be no doubt that 
it is frequently useful to us to direct our attention to 
the distresses of others, by conceiving their situation to 
be ours ; but it does not appear to me that this process 
of the mind takes place in every case in which we are 
affected by the sight of misery. When we are once 
satisfied that a particular situation is a natural source 
of misery to the person placed in it, the bare percep- 
tion of the situation is sufficient to excite an unpleas- 
ant emotion in the spectator, without any reference 
whatever to himself. This is easily explicable on the 
common doctrine of the association of ideas. 

Nor is this all. The looks, the gestures, the tones 
of distress, speak in a moment from heart to heart, and 
affect us with an anguish more exquisitely piercing 
than any we are able to produce by all the various 
expedients we can employ to assist the imagination in 
conceiving the situation of the sufferer. 

But, not to insist on these considerations, and 
granting the second proposition in all its extent, the 
third proposition is by no means a necessary conse- 
quence of it; for even in those cases in which we 
endeavour to awaken our compassion for the sufferings 
of our neighbour by conceiving ourselves placed in his 
situation, our compassion is not founded on a belief 
that the sufferings are ours. So long as we conceive 
ourselves in distress, we feel a certain degree of unea- 
siness ; but this is not the uneasiness of compassion. 
In order to excite this, we must apply to our neighbour 
the result of what we have experienced in ourselves; 
or, in other words, having formed an idea of what he 
suffers by bringing his case home to ourselves, we 
must carry our attention back to him before he be- 
comes the object of our pity. Nor is there any thing 
mysterious or wonderful in this process of the mind. 
That we are so formed as to expect that the operation 
of the same cause, in similar circumstances, will be 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 89 

attended with the same result, might be shown from 
a thousand instances. It is thus, that, having tried a 
physical experiment on certain substances, I take for 
granted that the result of a similar experiment on 
similar substances will be the same. It is thus that 
I conclude, with the most perfect confidence, that a 
wound given to my body in a particular organ would 
be instantly fatal; although it is worthy of remark, 
that in this case I have no direct evidence from experi- 
ence that the internal structure of my body is similar 
to those of the bodies which anatomists have hitherto 
examined. Now, I apprehend, it is in the same man- 
ner, that, having once experienced the pain produced 
by an instrument of torture applied to myself, I take 
for granted that the effect will be the same when it is 
applied to another. In consequence of this application, 
the sentiment of compassion arises in my mind, during 
the continuance of which my attention is completely 
engrossed, not about myself, but about the real sufferer 
And, indeed, if the case were otherwise, compassion 
would be ultimately resolvable into a selfish principle, 
and those men would be most ready to feel the dis- 
tresses of others who are most impatient of their own. 
A remark similar to this, as I have already observed, is 
made by Dr. Butler, with respect to a theory of 
Hobbes, who defines pity to be the fiction of future 
calamity to ourselves from the sight* of the present 
calamity of another. " Were this the case," says Butler, 
" the most fearful tempers would be the most compas- 
sionate." According to Mr. Smith, pity arises from the 
fiction, not of future, but of present, calamity to our- 
selves. The two theories approach very nearly to each 
other, and the same answer is applicable to both* 

* So far, indeed, is it from being true that those who are most impatient 
under their personal distresses are the most prone to commiserate the 
sorrows of others, that I apprehend the reverse of this supposition will be 
found agreeable to universal experience. The most unfeeling characters 
I have ever known have been men. not only tremblingly alive to the slight- 
est evil which affected themselves, but whose whole attention seemed 
manifestly to he engrossed with their own comforts and luxuries. On the 
other hand, the nearest approaches I have happened to witness to stoical 
8* 



90 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

In further proof that the distress produced by the suf- 
ferings of others arises from a conception that these dis- 
tresses are our own, Mr. Smith mentions a variety of 
facts which he thinks establish his doctrine with de- 
monstrative evidence. " When we see a stroke aimed 
and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another 
person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own 
leg, or our own arm, and when it does fall we feel it in 
some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. 
The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the 
slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their 
own bodies as they see him do, and as they feel that 
they must themselves do, if in his situation." In gen- 
eral, he observes, that, " as to be in pain or distress of 
any kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to con- 
ceive or to imagine that we are in it excites some de- 
gree of the same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity 
or dulness of the conception." * 

The facts here appealed to by Mr. Smith are indeed 
extremely curious, and I do not pretend to explain 
them. They are not, however, singular facts in our 
constitution, but belong to that class of phenomena 
which medical writers refer to what they call the prin- 
ciple of imitation.^ Of this kind are the contagious 
effects of hysterics, of yawning, of laughter, of crying, 
&c. In these last cases Mr. Smith would suppose, if 
he were to apply the same reasoning he uses in analo- 
gous instances, that the effect arises from our conceiv- 
ing ludicrous or sorrowful ideas similar to those by 
which these emotions are produced. But the primary 

patience and fortitude under severe suffering have been invariably accom- 
panied with a peculiarly strong disposition to social tenderness and sym- 
pathy. Gray alludes to this contrast in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of 
Eton College : — - 

" To each his sufferings ; all are men 
Condemned alike to groan; 
The feeling, for another's pain, 
The unfeeling, for his own." 
* Theory of Moral Sentiments. Part I. Sect. I. Chap i. 
\ In my Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. III., I have distinguished 
this law of our nature by the more precise and unequivocal title of the 
Principle of '' Sympathetic Imitation. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 91 

effect seems to be produced on the body, and the secon 
dary effect on the mind ; somewhat in the same man 
ner in which we can excite a sensible degree of the pas- 
sion of anger in our own breast by imitating the looks 
and gestures which are expressive of rage. It does not 
appear to me that this bodily contagion of the expres- 
sion of passion has any immediate connection with our 
fellow-feeling with distress. If it had, those would be 
most liable to it who felt the most deeply for the sor- 
rows of others, — a conclusion which is certainly not 
agreeable to fact. During the madness of Belvidera, 
those who are the most powerfully affected by the rep- 
resentation are not the nervous ladies who catch from 
the actress something similar to a hysteric paroxysm ; 
but they who, retaining their own reason, reflect on the 
train of misfortunes which have unhinged her mind, 
and who weep for her madness, not so much as a mis- 
fortune in itself, as an indication of that conflict of 
passions by which it was produced. The effect in the 
former case depends on a peculiar irritability and 
mobility of the bodily frame altogether unconnected 
with any of the moral sympathies or sensibilities of 
our nature. 

Section VI. 

OF RESENTMENT, AND THE VARIOUS OTHER ANGRY AF 
FECTIONS GRAFTED UPON IT, COMMONLY CONSIDERED 
BY ETHICAL WRITERS AS MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 

I. Enumeration of the Malevolent Affections originat- 
ing; in Resentment.] The names which are given to 
these affections in common discourse are various, Ha- 
tred, Jealousy, Envy, Revenge, Misanthropy; but it 
may be doubted if there be any principle of this kind 
implanted by nature in the mind, excepting the Princi- 
ple of Resentment, the others being grafted on this 
stock by our erroneous opinions and criminal habits. 

Emulation, indeed, (which is unquestionably an orig- 
inal principle of action,) is treated of by Dr. Reid un- 



92 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

der the title of the Malevolent Affections. But I for* 
merly gave my reasons for classing this principle with 
the desires, and not with the affections. I acknowl- 
edged, indeed, that emulation is often accompanied 
with ill-will to our rival ; but the malevolent affection 
is only a concomitant circumstance; and it is not the 
affection, but the desire of superiority, which can be 
justly regarded as the active principle. 

Nor is this sentiment of ill-will a necessary concomi- 
tant of the desire of superiority; for there is unques- 
tionably a solid distinction between emulation and en- 
vy, the latter of which is a corruption of the former, 
disgraceful to the character and ruinous to the happi- 
ness of whoever indulges it. In the case of envy, the 
malevolent affection arises, I believe, generally from 
some error of the judgment or some illusion of the 
imagination, leading us to refer the cause of our own 
want of success either to some injustice on the part of 
our rival, or to an unjust partiality in the world, which 
overrates his merits and undervalues ours. In both of 
these cases, the desire of superiority generates malevo- 
lent affections, by first leading us to apprehend injus- 
tice, and thus exciting the natural passion of resentment. 

Before proceeding to consider this principle of ac- 
tion, it may be proper again to remark, that, when the 
epithet malevolent is applied to it, that word must not 
be understood to imply any thing criminal, at least so 
long as resentment is restrained within proper bounds, 
after having been originally excited by real injustice. 
The epithet malevolent is used only to express that tem- 
porary ill-will towards the author of the apprehended in- 
justice with which resentment is necessarily accompa- 
nied till it begins to subside. 

One of the first authors who examined with success 
this part of our constitution, and illustrated the impor- 
tant purposes to which it is subservient, was Bishop 
Butler, in an excellent discourse printed among his Ser- 
mons. The hints he has thrown out have evidently 
been of great use both to Lord Kames and Mr. Smith 
in their speculations concerning the principles of morals. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 95 

II. Instinctive and Deliberate Resentment.} To But- 
ler we are indebted for the illustration of a very impor- 
tant distinction (which had been formerly hinted at by 
Hobbes) between instinctive and deliberate resentment 
Instinctive resentment operates in men exactly as in 
the lower animals, arising necessarily from any feeling 
of pain excited by external objects, and prompting us 
to a retaliation upon the cause of our suffering, without 
any exercise whatever of reflection and reason. It is 
thas that a child beats the ground after it has hurt it- 
self by a fall, and that we sometimes see a passionate 
man wreak his vengeance on inanimate objects by dash- 
ing them to pieces. This species of resentment, how- 
ever, subsides instantly, and we are ready next moment 
to smile at the absurdity of our conduct. 

Deliberate resentment is excited only by intentional 
injury, and therefore implies a sense of justice, or of 
moral good or evil. It is plainly peculiar to a rational 
nature, though perhaps it is not very distinguishable 
from instinctive or animal resentment in the ruder state 
of our own species. It is observed by Dr. Robertson, 
that " the desire of vengeance which takes possession 
of the heart of savages resembles the instinctive rage 
of an animal rather than the passion of a man, and 
that it turns with undiscerning fury even against inani- 
mate objects." He adds, "that, if struck with an ar- 
row in battle, they will tear it from the wound, break 
and bite it with their teeth, and dash it on the ground."* 

This distinction, too, is much insisted on by Lord 
Karnes in various parts of his writings; and it is from 
him that I have borrowed the phrase of instinctive re- 
sentment, which he has substituted instead of sudden 
resentment, employed by Butler. 

III. The Final Cause of Instinctive Resentment.} The 
final cause of instinctive resentment was plainly to de- 
fend us against sudden violence, (where reason would 
come too late to our assistance,) by rousing the powers 

* History of America, Book IV. § 73. 



91 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

both of mind and body to instant and vigorous exer- 
tion. A number of our other instincts are perfectly 
analogous to this. Such, for example, is the instinctive 
effort we make to recover ourselves when we are in 
danger of losing our balance,* and the instinctive de- 

* Although I have followed Dr. ReicVs language in calling this an in- 
stinctive effort, I am abundantly aware that the expression is not unexcep- 
tionable. On this head I perfectly agree (excepting in one single point) 
with the following remarks of Gravesande : — 

" II y a quelque chose d'admirable dans le moyen ordinaire dont les 
hommes se servent, pour s'empecher de tomber : car dans le terns que, 
par quelque mouvement, le poids du corps s'augmente d'une cote, un 
autre mouvement retablit l'equilibre dans Finstant. On attribue commune- 
ment la chose a un instinct naturel quoiqu'il faille necessairernent I'attribu- 
er a un art perfectionne par l'exercise. 

" Les enfans ignorent absoluinent cet art dans les premieres annees de 
leur vie ; ils l'apprennent peu a, peu, et s'y perfection ncnt, parce qu'ils ont 
continuellement occasion de s'y exercer ; exercise qui, dans la suite, n'exi- 
ge presque plus aucune attention de leur part; tout comme un musician 
remue les doigts, suivant les regies de l'art, pendant qu'il appenjoit a peine 
qu'il y fasse le moindre attention." — (Euvres Philosophiques de M. S'Gravc- 
sande, p. 121, 2de Partie, Amsterdam, 1774. 

The only thing I am disposed to object to in the foregoing passage is 
that clause where the autlior ascribes the effort in question to an art. Is it 
not manifestly as wide of the truth to refer it to this source as to a pure 
instinct ? 

The word art implies intelligence, — tbe perception of an end, and the 
choice of means. But where is there any appearance of either in an oper- 
ation common to the whole species, (not excepting the idiot and the in- 
sane,) and which is practised as successfully by the brutes as by rational 
creatures ? 

Elephants (it is well known) were taught by the ancients to walk on the 
tight rope, on which occasions their trunk probably performed the office of 
a pole. Whoever has seen a peacock walk in a windy day along the 
branch of a tree must have observed the address with which he avails 
himself of his tail for the same purpose. 

Nothing, however, can place in a stronger light the capacity of the 
brutes to acquire the nice management of the centre of gravity, than the 
mathematical exactness with which we may daily see horses in the circus 
adjusting the inclination of their bodies to the velocity of their circular 
speed. Here, indeed, a good deal is to be ascribed to the effects of human 
discipline, but by far the greater part of the groundwork is laid by nature 
in the instinctive dispositions of the animal. The acquisition seems to be 
almost as easy as that of the habits which constitute the acquired percep- 
tions of sight. 

In one of the last volumes of Dr. Clarke's Travels there is a figure of 
a goat, whom the author saw standing with its four feet collected together 
on the top of a cylindrical piece of wood of a few inches diamctCL No- 
body can doubt that the effects of discipline were greatly facilitated in this 
instance by the natural instincts of the goat, which probably accommo- 
dated themselves with very little instruction to the artificial circumstances 
in which they were forced to operate. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 93 

ppatch with which we shut the eyelids when an object 
is made to pass rapidly before the face. In general it 
m\] be found, that, as nature has taken upon herself 
the care of our preservation daring the infancy of our 
reason, so in every case in which our existence is threat- 
ened by dangers, against which reason is unable to 
supply a remedy ivith sufficient promptitude, she contin- 
ues this guardian care through the whole of life. 

The disposition which we sometimes feel, when un- 
der the influence of instinctive resentment, to wreak 
our vengeance upon inanimate objects, has suggested 
to Dr. Reid a very curious query, Whether, upon such 
an occasion, we may have a momentary belief that the 
object is alive ? For my own part, I confess my incli- 
nation to answer this question in the affirmative. I 
agree with Dr. Reid in thinking, that, unless we had 
such a belief, our conduct could not possibly be what 
it frequently is, and that it is not till this momentary 
belief is at an end that our conduct appears to our- 
selves to be absurd and ludicrous. With respect to in- 
fants, there are many facts besides that now under con- 
sideration which render it probable that their first ap- 
prehensions lead them to believe all the objects around 
them to be animated, and that it is only in consequence 
of experience and reason that they come to form the 
notion of insentient substances. If this be the case, 
the illusion of imagination which leads us to ascribe 
life to things inanimate, when we are under the influ- 
ence of instinctive resentment, may perhaps be owing 
to a momentary relapse into those apprehensions which 
were habitually familiar to us in the first years of our 
existence. 

But whatever theory we adopt on the subject, there 
can be no doubt about the fact, that the final cause of 
this law of our nature was to secure and guard us 
against the sudden effects of external injuries in cases 
whore there is not time for deliberation and judgment. 
With respect to the injuries we are liable to from our 
fellow-creatures, it secures us further by its effect in re- 
straining them from acts of violence. " It is a kind of 



96 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

penal statute promulgated by nature, the execution of 
which is committed to the sufferer." * 

IV. Final Cause of Deliberate Resentment.] In man 
the instinctive resentment subsides as soon as he is sat- 
isfied that no injury was intended ; and it is only inten- 
tional injury that is the object of settled and deliberate 
resentment. The final cause of this species of resent- 
ment is analogous to that of the other, — to serve as a 
check on those men whose violent or malignant pas- 
sions might lead them to disturb the happiness of their 
fellow-creatures. 

In order to secure still more effectually so very im- 
portant an end, we are so formed that the injustice of- 
fered to others, as well as to ourselves, awakens our re- 
sentment against the aggressor, and prompts us to take 
part in the redress of their grievances. In this case the 
emotion we feel is more properly denoted in our lan- 
guage by the word indignation; but (as Butler has re- 
marked) our principle of action is in both cases funda- 
mentally the same, — an aversion or displeasure at in- 
justice and cruelty, which interests us in the punishment 
of those by whom they have been exhibited. Resent- 
ment, therefore, when restrained within due bounds, 
seems to be rather a sentiment of hatred against vice 
than an affection of ill-will against any of our fellow- 
creatures ; and, on this account, I am somewhat doubt- 
ful (notwithstanding the apology I have already made 
for the title of this section) whether I have not followed 
Dr. Reid too closely in characterizing resentment, con- 
sidered as an original part of the constitution of man, 
by the epithet of malevolent. 

An additional confirmation of this doctrine arises 
from the following consideration : — that, in candid and 
generous minds, the whole object of resentment is to 
convince the person who has injured them that he has 
treated them unjustly, — to show him that he has 
formed an unfair estimate of their characters and of 

* Reid, On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. v. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 97 

their talents, and to obtain such a superiority over him 
in point of power as to be able, by a generous forgive- 
ness of his agressions, to convert his malice into 
gratitude. In other words, in such minds the great 
object of resentment is to correct the faults of the 
delinquent, and to make a friend of an enemy. 

This last observation points out, by the way, the 
final cause of a very remarkable circumstance accom- 
panying the affection of resentment when excited by 
an injury offered to ourselves. We desire not only the 
punishment of the offender, but that we should have 
the power of inflicting the punishment with our own 
hand. It is probable that this originates partly in our 
love of power; but I believe it is chiefly owing to a 
secret wish of convincing our enemy, by the magna- 
nimity of our conduct, how much he had mistaken the 
object of his hatred. In the mean and the malicious, 
the passion of revenge is gratified by any suffering in- 
flicted on an enemy, whether by an indifferent person 
or by the hand of Heaven. 

After all, however, that I have advanced in justifica- 
tion of this part of the human constitution, I must ac- 
knowledge that there is no principle of action which 
requires more pains, even in the best mind.s, to restrain 
it within the bounds of moderation. The imagination 
exaggerates the injuries that we ourselves have re- 
ceived; and mistaken views of human nature, concur- 
ring with low spirits or disappointed ambition, lead us 
to ascribe to our opponents worse motives than those 
from which they really have acted. We seldom, too, 
are sufficiently attentive to the situations and feelings 
of other men, and even where we do make an effort to 
place ourselves in their circumstances, it is not every 
man who is possessed of the degree of imagination 
requisite for that purpose. Our own sufferings, at the 
same time, are always present to our view, and force 
themselves on the notice of the most thoughtless with- 
out any effort on their part. And hence it is that an 
irritability to personal injury is often accompanied with 
a callousness to the feelings of others, and even with a 
9 



VO INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

disposition to put unfavorable constructions on their 
actions. 

V. How checked and restrained by Indignation in 
Others.] In order to check the excesses to which this 
ungovernable passion is apt to lead us, nature has 
made a beautiful provision in that sentiment of indig- 
nation which the sight of injustice excites in the breast 
of the unconcerned spectator. This sentiment inter- 
ests society in general in the cause of the oppressed, 
and serves to protect the weak against the wrongs of the 
powerful. As it is not, however, liable to the same ex- 
cesses with the passion of resentment excited by a per- 
sonal injury, it sympathizes only with the injured while 
his retaliations are restrained within the bounds of mod- 
eration. When resentment rises to cruel and relent- 
less revenge, unconcerned spectators become disposed 
to abandon the cause they had espoused, and to trans- 
fer their protection to the original aggressor. 

It does not follow from this observation that resent- 
ment and indignation are two distinct principles ; for 
the whole difference between them may be accounted 
for from the different views we naturally take of our 
own wrongs and those of others. They are both found- 
ed in a sentiment of aversion and ill-will excited by 
injustice ; but the one is more apt to pass the bounds 
of moderation than the other, in consequence of the 
facts being more strongly obtruded on our notice, and 
often exaggerated by the heightenings of imagination. 

Mr. Smith has endeavoured, on the principles now 
slated, to account for the origin of our sense of justice. 
The passion of resentment, he thinks, when excited by 
a personal injury, would set no bounds to its gratifica- 
tion, but would lead us to sacrifice every thing to re- 
venge. But, as we find that other men would not go 
along with us when our revenge ceases to bear any 
proportion to the original injury, we learn to adjust our 
retaliations, not to our own feelings, but to those of 
the impartial spectator. Hence the origin of our sense 
of justice, our regard for which arises from our desire 
of obtaining the symnathv and the support of society. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 9& 

I shall afterwards state some objections to this theo- 
ry, which appear to me unanswerable. In particular, I 
shall attempt to show, that, so far is our idea of justice 
from being posterior to the affections of resentment and 
indignation, and to a comparison between our own 
feelings and those of other men, that the very emotion 
of deliberate resentment presupposes the idea of jus- 
tice, and of what is morally right and wrong. The i 
fact, however, on which the theory proceeds is a most 
important one, and Mr. Smith has had great merit in 
illustrating it so fully. Lord Karnes, in his Historical 
Law Tracts, has made a happy application of it to ex- 
plain the origin and progress of criminal law. Which 
of these two authors first conceived the idea of apply- 
ing it to jurisprudence does not appear to me to be per- 
fectly certain. Both of them have evidently been 
much indebted, in their speculations concerning this 
part of human nature, to the Sermons of Bishop Butler. 

VI. All the Malevolent Affections attended by a Sense 
of Pain.] I shall conclude this subject at present by 
remarking, that, as all the benevolent affections are ac- 
companied with pleasant emotions, so all the malevo- 
lent affections are sources of pain and disquiet. This 
is true even of resentment, how justly soever it may be 
roused by the injurious conduct of others. Here, too, 
we may perceive a final cause perfectly analogous to 
that of which I formerly took notice in treating of the 
benevolent affections. As the pleasant emotion accom- 
panying these seems evidently to have been intended 
as an incitement to us to cultivate and cherish them, so 
the painful feeling accompanying resentment, and every 
other affection which is hostile to our fellow-creatures, 
serves as a check on the habitual indulgence of them, 
and induces us, as soon as the first impulse of passion 
is over, and reason begins to reassume her empire, to 
obliterate every trace of them from the memory. Dr. 
Reid has expressed this last observation with great 
beauty, and has enforced it with uncommon felicity of 
Illustration. " When we consider that, on the one 



100 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

hand, every benevolent affection is pleasant in its na- 
ture, is health to the soul and a cordial to the spirits; 
that nature has made even the outward expression of 
benevolent affections in the countenance pleasant to 
every beholder, and the chief ingredient of beauty in 
'the human face divine'; that, on the other hand, every 
malevolent affection, not only in its faulty excesses, but 
in its moderate degrees, is vexation and disquiet to the 
mind, and even gives deformity to the countenance, it 
is evident that by these signals nature loudly admon- 
ishes us to use the former as our daily bread, both for 
health and pleasure, but to consider the latter as a nau- 
seous medicine, which is never to be taken without ne- 
cessity, and even then in no greater quantity than the 
necessity requires." * 

After the clear, and, at the same time, cautious terms 
in which Butler, Kames, and Smith have expressed 
themselves concerning resentment, it is surprising to 
find some late writers of considerable name speaking 
of the pleasure of revenge as a i atural gratification, of 
which every man is entitled to look forward to the en- 
joyment ; and which, after the establishment of the po- 
litical union, every man has a right to insist upon at 
the hands* of the civil magistrate. Such, in particular, 
seems to be the opinion of Mr. Bentham, and of his 
very ingenious and eloquent commentator, M. Du- 
mont : — 

" Every species of satisfaction naturally brings in its 
train a punishment to the defendant, a pleasure of ven- 
geance for the party injured. This pleasure is a gain : 
it recalls the riddle of Samson ; it is the sweet which 
comes out of the strong ; it is the honey gathered from 
the carcass of the lion. Produced without expense, 
net result of an operation necessary on other accounts, 
it is an enjoyment to be cultivated as well as any oth- 
er ; for the pleasure of vengeance, considered abstract- 
ly, is, like every other pleasure, only good in itself. 
It is innocent so long as it is confined within the limits 

* On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. vi. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. IOj. 

of the laws; it becomes criminal at the moment it 
breaks them Useful to the individual, this mo- 
tive is also useful to the public, or, to speak more cor- 
rectly, necessary. It is this vindictive satisfaction 
which often unties the tongue of the witness ; it is 
this which generally animates the breast of the accuser, 
and engages him in the service of justice, notwith- 
standing the trouble, ihe expenses, the enmities, to 
which it exposes him ; it is this which overcomes the 
public pity in the punishment of the guilty 

" Some commonplace moralists, always the dupes of 
words, cannot understand this truth. ' The desire of 
vengeance is odious ; all satisfaction drawn from this 
source is vicious ; forgiveness of injuries is the noblest 
of virtues.' Doubtless, implacable characters, whom 
no satisfaction can soften, are hateful and ought to be 
so. The forgiveness of injuries is a virtue necessary to 
humanity ; but it is only a virtue when justice has 
done its work, when it has furnished or refused a sat- 
isfaction. Before this, to forgive injuries is to invite 
their perpetration, — is to be, not the friend, but the 
enemy of society. "What could wickedness desire more 
than an arrangement by which offences should be al- 
ways followed by pardon ? " * 

The observations above quoted from Butler, Reid, 
and Smith will at once point out the limitations with 
which this passage must be understood, and will fur- 
nish a triumphant reply to it where it departs from the 
truth.f 



* Bcntham's Principles of Penal Law, Part I. Chap. xvi. The French 
translation by M. Dumont was published before the original, and was quot- 
ed by Mr. Stewart. I have taken the liberty to substitute the original, 
which has since appeared. — Ed. 

1 To tbe works already cited or referred to in this and *he preceding 
chapters as illustrating what Mr. Stewart calls the Instinctive Principles 
of Action should be added Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lecfc. 
LXV.-LXXII.; Cogan's Philosophical Treatise on the Passions; liauch'a 
Psychology, Part II. Sect. II. ; D amir on. Psychologic, Sect. II. Chap, 
ii. — Ed. 

9* 



BOOK II. 

OF OUR RATIONAL* AND GOVERNING PRINCI- 
PLES OF ACTION. 



CHAPTER I. 



OF A PRUDENTIAL REGARD TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS, 
OR WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED BY MORALISTS THE 
PRINCIPLE OE SELF-LOVE. 

I. Difference between the Animal and Rational Na- 
tures.] The constitution of man, if it were composed 
merely of the active principles hitherto mentioned, 
would, in some important respects, be analogous to 
that of the brutes. His reason, however, renders his 
nature and condition, on the whole, essentially differ- 
ent from theirs ; and, by elevating him to the rank of 
a moral agent, distinguishes him i'rom the lower animals 
still more remarkably than by the superiority it imparts 
to his intellectual endowments. 

Of this want of reason in the brutes, it is an obvious 
result, that they are incapable of looking forward to 
consequences, or of comparing together the different 
gratifications of which they are susceptible; and, ac- 
cordingly, as far as we can perceive, they yield to every 
present impulse. Among the inhabitants of this globe 



* To various active principles which have been already under our con- 
sideration, such, for instance, as the desire of knowledge, the desire of es- 
teem, pity to the distressed, &c, &c, the epithet rational may undoubtedly 
be applied in one sense with propriety, as they exclusively belong to ration- 
al beings ; but they are yet of a nature essentially different from those ac- 
tive principles of which we are now to treat, and which I have distin 
guished by the title of Rational and Governing. My reasons for using this? 
language will appear in the sequel, 



SELF-LOVE. 103 

it is the exclusive prerogative of man, as an intelligent 
being, to take a comprehensive survey of his various 
principles of action, and to form plans of conduct for 
the attainment of his favorite objects. He is possessed, 
therefore, of the power of self-government ; for how- 
could a plan of conduct be conceived and carried into 
execution, without a power of refusing occasionally to 
particular active principles the gratification which they 
demand? This difference between the animal and the 
rational natures is well and concisely described by 
Seneca in the following words :-— " Animalibus pro 
ratione impetus; homini pro impetu ratio."* 

According to the particular active principle which 
influences habitually a man's conduct, his character re- 
ceives its denomination of covetous, ambitious, studious, 
or voluptuous ; and his conduct is more or less syste- 
matical as he adheres to his general plan with steadiness 
or inconstancy. 

II. Importance of Self-control and of systematic and 
concentrated Action.] It is hardly necessary for me to 
remark how much a man's success in his favorite 
pursuit depends on the systematical steadiness with 
which he keeps his object in view. That an un- 
common measure of this quality often supplies, to a 
great degree, the place of genius, and that, where it is 
wanting, the most splendid endowments are of little 
value, are facts which have been often insisted on by 
philosophers, and which are confirmed to us by daily 
experience. The effects of this concentration of the 
attention to one particular end on the development 
and improvement of the intellectual powers in general 
have not been equally taken notice of. They are, 
however, extremely remarkable, as every person will 
readily acknowledge, who compares the sagacity and 
penetration of those individuals who have enjoyed its 
advantages with the weakness and incapacity and 



* Seneca, Be. Ira, IX 16. "Animals have impulse for reason; man, 
reason for impulse." 



104 SELF-LOVE. 

dissipation of thought produced by an undecided 
choice among the various pursuits which human life 
presents to us. Even the systematical voluptuary, 
while he commands a much greater variety of sensual 
indulgences, and continues them to a much more 
advanced age, than the thoughtless profligate, seldom 
fails to give a certain degree of cultivation to his 
understanding, by employing his faculties habitually in 
one direction. 

The only exception, perhaps, which can be men- 
tioned to this last remark, occurs in the case of those 
men whose leading principle of action is vanity, and 
who, as their rule of conduct is borrowed from with- 
out, must, in consequence of this very circumstance, 
be perpetually wavering and inconsistent in their 
pursuits. Accordingly, it will be found that such men, 
although they have frequently performed splendid 
actions, have seldom risen to eminence in any one 
particular career, unless when, by a rare concurrence of 
accidental circumstances, this career has been steadily 
pointed out to them, through the whole of their lives, 
by public opinion. 

" Alcibiades," says a French writer, " was a man not 
of ambition, but of vanity, — a man whose ruling 
passion was to make a noise, and to furnish matter 
of conversation to the Athenians. He possessed the 
genius of a great man, but his soul, the springs of 
which were too much slackened to urge him to con- 
stant application, could not elevate him, but by starts, 
to pursuits worthy of his powers. I can scarcely bring 
myself to believe that a man, whose versatility was 
such as to enable him when in Sparta to assume the 
severe manners of a Spartan, and when in Ionia to 
indulge in the refined voluptuousness of an Ionian, 
had received from nature the stamina of a great char- 
acter." * 

To what has been now observed in favor of syste- 



* Quoted by Warburton in his note on Pope's character of the 
Wharton, Moral Essays, Ep. I. 190. 



Duke o/ 
Wharton, 



SELF-LOVE. 105 

mat leal views in the conduct of life, it may be added, 
that they are incomparably more conducive to hap 
viness than a course of action influenced merely by oc- 
casional inclination and appetite. Lord Shaftesbury 
goes so far as to assert, that even the man who is uni- 
formly and systematically bad enjoys more happiness 
(perhaps he would have been nearer the truth if he had 
contented himself with saying that he suffers less misery) 
than one of a more mixed and more inconsistent char- 
acter. " It is the thorough profligate knave alone, the 
complete unnatural villain, who can any way bid for 
happiness with the honest man. True interest is whol- 
ly on one side or on the other. All between is incon- 
sistency, irresolution, remorse, vexation, and an ague« 
fit, — from hot to cold, — from one passion to another 
quite contrary, — a perpetual discord of life, and an al- 
ternate disquiet and self-dislike. The only rest or re- 
pose must be through one determined considerate reso- 
lution, which, when once taken, must be courageously 
kept, and the passions and affections brought under 
obedience to it, — the temper steeled and hardened to 
the mind, — the disposition to the judgment. Both 
must agree, else all must be disturbance and confu- 
sion." * 

To the same purpose Horace: — 

" Quanto constantior idem 
In vitiis, tan to levior miser, ac prior illo 
Qui jam contento, jam laxo fune laboret."t 

III. Examples of the Evils of Inconstancy.] Of the 
state of a mind originally possessed of the most splen- 
did endowments, but where every thing has been suf- 
fered to run into anarchy from the want of some con- 
trolling and steady principle of action, a masterly pic- 
ture is drawn by Cicero in the following account of 
Catiline. 



* Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor. Part IV. Sect. 

t Hoi\, Sermo., Lib. II., Sat. VII. 18. 

" So constant was he to his darling vice. 
Yet less a wretch than he who now maintains 
A steady course, now drives with looser reins." 



106 SELF-LOVE. 

" Tftebatur hominibus improbis multis, et quidem op« 
timis se viris deditum esse simulabat ; erant apud il- 
ium illecebrae llbidinum multae ; erant etiam industries 
qui dam stimuli ac laboris : flagrabant libidinis vitia 
apud ilium ; vigebant etiam studia rei militaris : neque 
ego unquam fuisse tale monstrum in terris ullum puto, 
tarn ex contrariis diversisqae inter se pugnantibus natu- 
rae studiis cupiditatibusque conflatum. Quis clariori- 
bns viris quodam tempore jucundior? quis turpioribus 
conjunctior? quis civis meliorum partium aliquando ? 
quis tetrior hostis huic civitati? quis in voluptatibus 
inquinatior? quis in laboribus patientior? quis in rapa- 
citate avarior ? quis in largitione effusior? "* 
* In a person of this description, whatever indications 
of genius and ability he may discover, and whatever 
may be the great qualities he possesses, there is un- 
doubtedly some tendency to insanity, which, if it were 
not the radical source of the evil, could hardly fail, 
sooner or later, to be the effect of a perpetual conflict 
between different and discordant passions. And, ac- 
cordingly, this is the idea which Sallust seems to have 
formed of this extraordinary man. " His eyes," he ob- 
serves, " had a disagreeable glare ; his complexion was 
pale ; his walk sometimes quick, sometimes slow ; and 
his general appearance indicated a discomposure of 
mind approaching to madness." 

I would not be understood to insinuate by this last 
observation, that, in every case in which we observe a 
conduct apparently inconsistent and irregular, we are 
entitled to conclude, all at once, that it proceeds from 
accidental humor, or from a disordered understanding. 

* Oratio pro M. Ccelio, Sect. V. and VI. " He was acquainted with a 
great number of wicked men, yet a pretended admirer of the virtuous. 
His house was furnished with a variety of temptations to lust and lewd- 
ness, yet with several incitements also to industry and labor: it was a 
scene of vicious pleasures, yet a school of martial exercises. There nev- 
er was such a monster on earth, compounded of passions so contrary and 
opposite. Who was ever more agreeable at one time to the best citizens ? 
who more intimate at another with the worst? who a man of better pro- 
fessions ? who a fouler enemy to this city ? who more intemperate in 
pleasure 1 who more patient in labor 1 who more rapacious in plundering ? 
who more profuse in squandering 1 " 



SELF-LOVE. 107 

The knowledge of a man's ruling passion is often a 
key to what appeared, on a superficial view, to be per- 
fectly inexplicable. Some excellent reflections on this 
subject are to be found in the first of Pope's Moral 
Essays, where they are most happily and forcibly illus- 
trated by the character of the Duke of Wharton. 

" Search, then, the ruling passion : there alone 
The wild are constant, and the cunning known ; 
The fool consistent, and the false sincere ; 
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. 
This clew, once found, unravels all the rest, 
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confessed, — 
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise. 
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 
Women and fools must like him, or he dies. 

Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule ? 
'T was all for fear the knaves should call him fool. 
Nature well known, no prodigies remain, 
Comets are regular and Wharton plain." 

I have only to add to these observations of Pope, 
that I believe the inconsistencies he describes are chiefly 
to be found in the conduct of men whose ruling prin- 
ciple of action is vanity. I have already remarked, 
that while every other principle which gains an ascen- 
dant over the rest has a tendency to systematize our 
course of action, vanity has, on the contrary, a tenden- 
cy to disorganize it, leading us always to look abroad 
for our rule of conduct, and thereby rendering it as wa- 
vering and inconsistent as the opinions and fashions of 
mankind. Where vanity, therefore, is the ruling pas- 
sion of any individual, a want of system may be re- 
garded as a necessary consequence of his general char- 
acter. 

IV. Why the Desire of Happiness should be account- 
ed a Rational, and not an Instinctive, Principle of Ac- 
Hon.] From the foregoing considerations it sufficiently 
appears how much the nature of man is discriminated 
from that of the brutes, in consequence of the compre- 
hensive view which his reason enables him to take of 
his different principles of action, and of the deliberate 



108 



SELF-LOVE. 



choice he has it in his power to make of the genera* 
plan of conduct he is to pursue. There is another, 
however, and a very important respect, in which the ra 
tional nature differs from the animal, — that it is able 
to form the notion of happiness, or what is good for it 
upon the 'whole, and to deliberate about the most effec- 
tual means of attaining it. It is owing to this distin- 
guishing prerogative of our species that we can avail 
ourselves of our past experience in avoiding those en- 
joyments which we know will be succeeded by suffering, 
and in submitting to lesser evils which we know are to 
be instrumental in procuring us a greater accession of 
good. " Sed inter hominem et belluam," says Cicero, 
" hoc maxime interest, quod hsec tan turn quantum sensu 
rnovetur, ad id solum quod adest, quodque prsesens est, 
se accommodat, paullulum admodum sentiens preeteri- 
tum aut futurum. Homo autem, quoniam rationis est 
particeps, per quam consequentia cernit, causas rerum 
videt, earumque prsegressus et antecessiones non igno- 
rat; similitudines comparat, et rebus prsesentibus ad- 
jungit atque annectit futuras ; facile totius vita3 cursum 
videt, ad eamque degendam prseparat res necessarias." * 
It is implied in the very idea of happiness that it is 
a desirable object, and therefore self-love is an active 
principle very different from those which have been 
hitherto considered. These, for aught we know, may 
be the effect of arbitrary appointment, and they have 
accordingly been called implanted principles, or princi- 
ples resulting from a positive accommodation of the 
constitution of man to the objects with which he is 
surrounded. The desire of happiness may be called a 
rational principle of action, being peculiar to a rational 
nature, and inseparably connected with it. It is im* 

* De Off., Lib. I. 4. "But between man and the lower animals there 
is in other respects the greatest difference. The latter, guided by the im- 
pulse of their senses alone, are confined to what is present, or near, with a 
very slight knowledge of the past or the future. Man, however, who par- 
takes of reason, distinguishes the causes and the consequences of events, 
observes their progress, compares similar circumstances, connects the past 
with the future, surveys the whole course of life, and makes the necessary 
provision for its well-being." 



SELF-LOVE. 109 

possible to conceive a being capable of forming the 
notions of happiness and misery, to whom the one 
shall not be an object of desire, and the other of 
aversion.* 

V. Objections to the Term Self-love.} In prefixing 
to this chapter the title of Self-love, the ordinary 
language of modern philosophy has been followed, as 
I am always anxious to avoid unnecessary innovations 
in the use of words. The expression, however, is ex- 
ceptionable, for it suggests an analogy (where there is 
none in fact) between that regard which every rational 
being must necessarily have to his own happiness, and 
those benevolent affections which attach us to our 
fellow-creatures. There is surely nothing in the former 
of these principles analogous to the affection of love; 
and, therefore, to call it by the appellation of self-love 
is to suggest a theory with respect to its nature, and 
a theory which has no foundation in truth. 

The word qjiXavria was used among the Greeks 
nearly in the same sense, and introduced similar inac- 
curacies into their reasonings concerning the principle 
of morals. In our language, however, the impropriety 
does not stop here ; for not only is the phrase self-love 
used as synonymous with the desire of happiness, but 
; t is often confounded (in consequence of an unfor- 
tunate connection in their etymology) with the word 
selfishness, which certainly, in strict propriety, denotes 
a very different disposition of mind. In proof of this 



* From this constitution of the human mind, as at once sensitive and 
rational, arise necessarily the emotions of hope and fear, joy and sorrow. 
The pleasurable emotion arising from good in expectation is called hope, 
the painful emotion arising from apprehended evil is called fear. The 
words joy and sorrow are more general, applicable alike to the emotions 
arising from the experience and from the apprehension of good and of evil 
The interest which our benevolent affections give us in the concerns of 
others inspires us (more particularly in the case of those to whom we arc 
fondly attached) with emotions analogous to those which have a reference 
to our own condition. 

The laws which regulate these emotions connected with the sensitive 
nature of man deserve a careful examination; but the subject does no*- 
fall under the present part of my plan. 

10 



110 SELF-LOVE. 

it is sufficient to observe, that the word selfishness is 
always used in an unfavorable sense, whereas self-love, 
or the desire of happiness, is inseparable from our 
nature as rational and sensitive beings. 

The mistaken notion that vice consists in an exces- 
sive self-love naturally arose from the application of the 
term self-love, or tfrCkavrUu to express the desire of hap- 
piness. As benevolence, or the love of mankind, con- 
stitutes, in the opinion of many moralists, the whole 
of virtue, so it was not unnatural to conclude that the 
love of ourselves (which this mode of speaking seems 
to contrast with benevolence) was the radical source 
of all the vices. And, accordingly, this conclusion has 
been adopted by many writers, both ancient and 
modern. " If we scan," says Dr. Barrow, " the partic- 
ular nature, and search into the original causes of the 
several kinds of naughty dispositions in our souls, and 
of miscarriages in our lives, we shall find inordinate 
self-love to be a main ingredient, and a common 
source of them all, so that a divine of great name had 
some reason to affirm that original sin (or that innate 
distemper from which men generally become so very 
prone to evil and averse to good) doth consist in self- 
love disposing us to all kinds of irregularity and 
. excess." * In this passage, Dr. Barrow refers to the 
opinion of Zuinglius, who has expressly called self-love 
the original or radical sin in our nature. " Est ergo 
ista ad peccandum amore sui propensio, peccatum 
originale." 

It is chiefly, however, from some of our English 
moralists that this notion concerning the nature of 
vice has derived its authority; and the plausibility of 
their reasonings on the subject has been much aided 
by that indiscriminate use of the words self-love and 
r selfishness of which I have already taken notice. 

I shall afterwards have occasion to show that vice 
does not consist in an excessive regard to our own 
happiness. At present I shall only remark, in addition 

* Sermon, On Self -Love in general. 



SELF-LOVE. Hi 

to what was said above with respect to the distinction 
between the meanings of the words self-love and self- 
is/mess, that the former is so far from expressing any 
thing blamable, that it denotes a principle of action 
which we never sacrifice to any of our implanted 
appetites, desires, or 9 flections without incurring re- 
morse and self-condemnation. When we see, for 
example, a man enslaved by his animal appetites, so 
far from considering him as under the influence of an 
excessive self-love, we pity and despise him for neglect- 
ing the higher enjoyments which are placed within 
his reach. Accordingly, those very authors who tell us 
that vice consists in an inordinate self-love are forced 
to confess that there are some senses of the word in 
which it expresses a worthy and commendable princi- 
ple of action. " Reason," says Dr. Barrow, " dictateth 
and prescribeth to us, that we should have a sober 
regard to our true good and welfare ; to our best inter- 
est and solid content; to that which (all things being 
rightly stated, considered, and computed) will in the 
end prove most beneficial and satisfactory to us ; a 
self-love working in prosecution of such things, com- 
mon sense cannot but allow and approve."* — u t6v fiiv 
aya$6v" says Aristotle, " 8« ^'Ckavrov thai." And in another 
passage of the same chapter, " Ad£e«r 6"' av 6 tolovtos fiaXXov 

eivcu (f)i\avTOs. J 

As a further proof that selfishness is not synonymous 
with the desire of happiness, it may be observed, that, 
although we apply the epithet selfish to avarice and to 
low private sensuality, we never apply it to the desire 
of knowledge or to the pursuits of virtue, which are 
certainly sources of more exquisite pleasure than riches 
or sensuality can bestow. 

" Yet at the darkened eye, the withered face, 
The hoary head, I never will repine : 
But spare, time! whate'er of mental grace, 
Of candor, love, or sympathy divine, 
Whate'er of fancy's ray, or friendship's flame, was mine." 



* Sermon. On Self-Love in general. 

t Elide. Mc, Lib. IX. Cap. viii "A good man must be a lover of 
himself." " Such a man would seem to he the greatest of self-lovers." 



112 SELF-LOVE. 

Such a wish is surely dictated by the most rational 
view of our real interest; and yet no man will pretend 
that it contains any thing inconsistent with a generous 
and heroic mind. Had it been directed to wealth, to 
long life, or to the preservation of youthful beauty and 
vigor, it would have been universally condemned as 
selfish and contemptible. 

VI. WJiy some Pursuits are called Selfish, while oth- 
ers, though contributing' still more to our own Good, are 
not.] This restriction of the term selfishness to a par- 
ticular class of human pursuits is taken notice of by 
Dr. Ferguson in his Essay on Civil Society, and seems 
to be considered by him as originating in a capricious, 
or rather in an inconsistent, use of language. "It is 
somewhat remarkable, that, notwithstanding men value 
themselves so much on qualities of the mind, on parts, 
learning, and wit, on courage, generosity, and honor, 
those men are still supposed to be in the highest degree 
selfish, or attentive to themselves, who are most careful 
about animal life, and who are least mindful of render- 
ing that life an object worthy of care, It will be diffi- 
cult, however, to tell why a good understanding, a 
resolute and generous mind, should not, by every man 
in his senses, be reckoned as much parts of himself as 
either his stomach or his palate, and much more than 
his estate or his dress. The epicure who consults his 
physician how he may restore his relish for food, and, 
by creating an appetite, renew his enjoyment, might 
at least, with an equal regard to himself, consult how 
he might strengthen his affection to a parent or a child, 
to his country or to mankind; and it is probable that 
an appetite of this sort would prove a source of enjoy- 
ment no less than the former." * 

Of the difficulty here remarked by Dr. Ferguson, the 
solution appears to me to be this, that the word selfish- 
ness, when applied to a pursuit, has no reference to the 
motive from which the pursuit proceeds, but to the effect 

* Part I. Sect. II. 



SELF-LOVE. 113 

it has on the conduct. Neither our animal appetites, 
nor avarice, nor curiosity, nor the desire of moral im- 
provement, arise from self-love, but some of these 
active principles disconnect us with society more than 
others ; and consequently, though they do not indicate 
a greater regard for our own happiness, they betray a 
greater unconcern about the happiness of our neigh- 
boars. The pursuits of the miser have no mixture 
whatever of the social affections ; on the contrary, they 
continually lead him to state his own interest in op- 
position to that of other men. The enjoyments of the 
sensualist all expire within his own person ; and, there- 
fore, whoever is habitually occupied in the search of 
them must of necessity neglect the duties which he 
owes to mankind. It is otherwise with the desire of 
knowledge, which is always accompanied with a strong 
desire of social communication, and with the love of 
moral excellence, which, in its practical tendency, co- 
incides so remarkably with benevolence, that many au- 
thors have attempted to resolve the one principle into 
the other. How far their conclusion, in this instance, 
is a necessary consequence of the premises from which 
it is deduced, will appear hereafter. 

The foregoing observations coincide so remarkably 
with a passage in Aristotle's Ethics, that 1 am tempted 
to quote it at length in the excellent English transla- 
tion of Dr. Gillies. After stating the same inconsisten- 
cies in our language about self-love which Dr. Ferguson 
has pointed out, Aristotle proceeds thus: — 

" These contradictions cannot be reconciled but by 
distinguishing the different senses in which man is said 
to love himself. Those who reproach self-love as a vice 
consider it only as it appears in worldlings and volup- 
tuaries, who arrogate to themselves more than their due 
share of wealth, power, or pleasure. Such things are 
to the multitude the objects of earnest concern and ea- 
gor contention, because the multitude regards them as 
} rizes ot the highest value, and, in endeavouring to at- 
tain them, strives to gratify its passion at the expense 
of its reason. This kind of self-love, which belongs tc 
10* 



114 SELF-LOVE. 

the contemptible multitude, is doubtless obnoxious to 
blame, and in this acceptation the word is generally 
taken. But should a man assume a preeminence in 
exercising justice, temperance, and other virtues, though 
such a man has really more true self-love than the mul- 
titude, yet nobody would impute this affection to him 
as a crime. Yet he takes to himself the fairest and 
greatest of all goods, and those the most acceptable to 
the ruling principle in his nature, which is properly him- 
self, in the same manner as the sovereignty in every 
community is that which most properly constitutes the 
state. He is said, also, to have, or not to have, the 
command of himself, just as this principle bears sway, 
or as it is subject to control ; and those acts are consid- 
ered as most voluntary which proceed from this legisla- 
tive or sovereign power. Whoever cherishes and grati- 
fies this ruling part of his nature is strictly and pecu- 
liarly a lover of himself, but in a quite different sense 
from that in which self-love is regarded as a matter of 
reproach ; for all men approve and praise an affection 
calculated to produce the greatest private and the great- 
est public happiness ; whereas they disapprove and 
blame the vulgar kind of self-love, as often hurtful to 
others, and always ruinous to those who indulge it." * 



* Aristotle's Ethics, Book IX. Chap. viii. 

Jouffroy accounts thus for the appearance of self-love (dgoisme) in human 
nature : — " The faculties, as long as they are abandoned to the impulse of 
the passions, ohey that passion which happens to be the strongest at the 
time, from which a twofold inconvenience ensues. In the first place, the 
passions are of all things the most unstable, the dominion of one being 
almost immediately supplanted by that of another, so that the faculties 
while under their exclusive control are incapable of continuous and con- 
nected effort, and consequently nothing of importance is effected. And, 
again, the good found in the satisfaction of the dominant passion at the 
moment often leads to serious evil, while, on the other hand, the evil of its 
not being satisfied often results in great and permanent good ; from which 
it appears that nothing is less favorable to the attainment of our highest 
good than this exclusive dominion of the passions. Reason is not slow to 
discover this, or to conclude from it that, in order to obtain the highest 
possible good, our effective force must no longer be the prey of the me- 
rhanical impulse of the passions. It sees, on the contrary, how much bet- 
ter it would be, if, instead of being hurried away each instant by such im- 
pulse to the gratification of some new passion, it were freed from this con 
straint, and directed exclusively to the realization of the interest of all the 



THE MORAL FACULTY. 115 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE MORAL FACULTY. 
Section I. 

THE MORAL FACULTY NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 

I. Duty and Interest not the same.] As some authors 
have supposed that vice consists in an excessive regard 



passions taken together, — that is to say, the greatest good of our whole 
nature. Moreover, with the same degree of clearness that our reason con- 
ceives this course to be wise, it also conceives it to be practicable. We are 
certainly capable of judging what the highest good of our nature is; our 
reason enables us to do it. Equally certain is it that we can, if we please, 
take possession of our own faculties, and employ them to carry out this 
idea of our reason. That we have this power has been revealed even un- 
der the exclusive empii-e of passion ; we have felt it in the spontaneous 
effort by which, in order to satisfy the dominant passion for the time being, 
we have concentrated all our forces on a single point. It is only necessary 
that we should do voluntarily what before we have done spontaneously, 
and free will appears. No sooner is this great revolution conceived, than 
it is accomplished. A new principle of action springs up within us, inter- 
est well understood, — a principle which is not a passion, but an idea ; not a 
blind and instinctive prompting of our nature, but an intelligible, deliber- 
ate, and rational purpose ; not an impulse, but a motive. Finding a point of 
support in this motive, the natural power we have over our faculties takes 
these faculties under its control, and in its effort to direct them according 
to this motive shakes off the bondage of the passions, and becomes itself 
more and more developed and free. From this time our active powers 
are delivered from the irregular, vacillating, and turbulent empire of the 
passions, and become submissive to the law of reason, which considers what 
will be for the greatest possible satisfaction of our tendencies, that is to 
say, the highest good of the individual, or self-interest well understood." — 
Cours de Droit Naturel, Le^on II. See the whole of this Lecture and the 
following one in the original, or in Mr. Channing's translation. 

No writer has treated the subject of self-love with so much care and 
minuteness of discrimination as Jeremy Bentham, in the first volume of 
his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we have 
what has been called his Moral Arithmetic, by which he thinks to deter- 
mine the relative value of different "lots of pleasure or pain" ; and also 
what has been called his Moral Dynamics, or the doctrine of forces, mo- 
tives, or sanctions, by which self-love, and through that the human will, ia 
influenced and determined in all cases. 

Paley, not content with making pleasure, considered as constituting hu- 
man happiness, the only ultimate object of human pursuit, denies that tho 
rational and moral pleasures, as such, are entitled to more regard than the 
.est. "In this inquiry," says he, "I will omit much usual declamation on 



116 THE MORAL FACULTY 

to our own happiness, so others have gone into the op- 
posite extreme, by representing virtue as merely a mattei 
of prudence, and a sense of duty but another name for 
a rational self-love. This view of the subject is far from 
being unnatural ; for we find that these two principles 
lead in general to the same course of action ; and we 
have every reason to believe, that, if our knowledge of 
the universe were more extensive, they would be found 
to do so in all instances whatever. Accordingly, by 
many of the best of the ancient moralists, our sense of 
duty was considered as resolvable into self-love, and 
the whole of ethics was reduced to this question, What 
is the supreme good ? or, in other words, What is most 
conducive, on the whole, to our happiness ? The same 
opinion, as will soon appear, has been adopted by vari- 
ous philosophers of the first eminence in England, and 
was long the prevailing system on the Continent. 

That we have, however, a sense of duty, which is not 
resolvable into a regard to our happiness, appears from 
various considerations. 

II. First Argument. Expressed by distinct Terms in 
all Languages.] There are, in all languages, words 
equivalent to duty and to interest, which men have con- 
stantly distinguished in their signification. They coin- 
cide in general in their applications, but they convey 
very different ideas. When I wish to persuade a man 
to a particular action, I address some of my arguments 

the dignity and capacity of our nature ; the superiority of the soul to the 
body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution ; upon the 
worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the mean- 
ness, grossness, and sensuality of others ; because I hold that pleasures 
differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity." — Moral Philosophy, 
Book I. Chap. vi. Dr. Whewcll, in the Preface to his edition of Sir James 
Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy^ says of this 
passage, — "If we could use such a term without an unbecoming disre- 
spect towards a virtuous and useful writer, this opinion might properly he 
called brutish, since it recognizes no difference between the pleasures of 
\nan and those of the lowest animals." 

For a very original and ingenious speculation respecting the nature of 
self-love and the natural disinterestedness of the human mind, see Hazlitt'i 
Essays on the Principles of Human Action. Also his Literary Remains, Es- 
say A., On Self love. 



NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE 117 

to a sense of duty, and others to the regard he has to 
his own interest. I endeavour to show him that it is 
not only his duty, but his interest, to act in the way 
that I recommend to him. 

This distinction was expressed among the Roman 
moralists by the words lionestum and utile. Of the 
former Cicero says, " Quod vere dicimus, etiamsi a nullo 
laudetur, natura esse laudabiie." * 

The to koXov among the Greeks corresponds, when ap- 
plied to the conduct, to the lionestum of the Romans. 
Dr. Reid remarks that the word naOfjicov (officium) ex- 
tended both to the lionestum and the utile, and compre- 
hended every action performed either from a sense of 
duty, or from an enlightened regard to our true inter- 
est.! I 11 English we use the word reasonable with the 
same latitude, and indeed almost exactly in the same 
sense in which Cicero defines officium : — " Id quod cur 
factum sit ratio probabilis reddi potest." £ In treating 
of such offices, Cicero, and Panoetius before him, first 
point out those that are recommended to us by oui 
love of the lionestum, and next those that are recom- 
mended by our regard to the utile. 

This distinction between a sense of duty and a re- 
gard to interest is acknowledged even by men whose 
moral principles are not the purest, nor the most con- 
sistent. What unlimited confidence do we repose in 
the conduct of one whom we know to be a man of honor, 
even in those cases in which he acts out of the view 
of the world, and where the strongest temptations of 
worldly interest concur to lead him astray! We know 
that his heart would revolt at the idea of any thing 
base or unworthy. Dr. Reid observes that what we 
call honor, considered as a principle of conduct, "is 



* De Offic. Tiib. 14. " Which, though none should praise it, we main- 
tain with truth to be of itself praiseworthy." 

t Essai/s on the Active Powers, Essay III. Part III. Chap. v. 

t De Offic, Lib. I. 3. >c That, for the doing of which a reasonable mo- 
tive can be assigned." But, as Sir W. Hamilton says in a note to the pas« 
gage in Reid, '• this definition does not apply to Ka6rJK0v or officium in gcn« 
oral, but only to kuBijkov fieaov, officium commune.'' 1 — Ed. 



118 THE MORAL FACULTY 

only another name for a regard to duty, to rectitude, 
to propriety of conduct." This, I think, is going rather 
too far; for, although the two principles coincide in 
general in the direction they give to our conduct, they 
do not coincide always ; the principle of honor being 
liable, from its nature and origin, to be most unhappily 
perverted in its applications by a bad education and the 
influence of fashion. At the same time, Dr. Reid's re- 
mark is perfectly in point, for the principle of honor is 
plainly grafted on a sense of duty, and necessarily pre- 
supposes its existence. 

Dr. Paley, one of the most zealous advocates for the 
selfish system of morals, admits the fact on which the 
foregoing argument proceeds, but endeavours to evade 
the conclusion by means of a theory so extraordinary, 
that I shall state it in his own words. " There is al- 
ways understood to be a difference between an act of 
prudence and an act of duty. Thus, if I distrusted a man 
who owed me a sum of money, I should reckon it an 
act of prudence to get another person bound with him; 
but I should hardly call it an act of duty. On the 
other hand, it would be thought a very unusual and 
loose kind of language to say, that, as I had made such 
a promise, it was prudent to perform it; or that, as my 
friend, when he went abroad, placed a box of jewels 
in my hands, it would be prudent in me to preserve it 
for him till he returned. 

" Now, in what, you will ask, does the difference con- 
sist, inasmuch as, according to our account of the mat- 
ter, both in the one case and the other, in acts of duty 
as well as acts of prudence, we consider solely what we 
ourselves shall gain or lose by the act. 

" The difference, and the only difference, is this ; that 
in the one case we consider what we shall gain or lose 
in the present world; in the other case, we consider 
also what we shall lose or gain in the world to come." * 

* Moral Philosophy, Book II. Chap. iii. It is in view of passages like 
these that Dr. Brown expresses himself with indignant severity. " This 
form of the selfish system, which has heen embraced by many theological 
writers of undoubted piety and purity, is notwithstanding, 1 cannot but 



NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 119 

On this curious passage I have no comment to offer. 
A sufficient answer to it may, I trust, be derived from 
the following reasonings. In the mean time, it will be 
allowed to be at least one presumption of an essential 
distinction between the notions of duty and of interest, 
that there are different words to express these notions 
in all languages, and that the most illiterate of man- 
kind are in no danger of confounding them together. 

Ill, Second Argument. Moral Emotions differ from 
all others in Kind.] But, secondly, the emotions arising 
from the contemplation of what is right and wrong in 
conduct are different both in degree and in kind from 
those which are produced by a calm regard to our own 
happiness. Of this, I think, nobody can doubt, who 
considers with attention the operation of our moral 
principles in cases where their effects are not counter- 
acted or modified by a combination with some other 
principles of our nature. In judging, for example, of our 
own conduct, our moral powers are warped by the influ- 
ence of self-partiality and self-deceit ; and, accordingly, 

think, as degrading to the human character as any other form of the doc- 
trine of absolute selfishness ; or rather, it is in itself the most degrading 
of all the forms which the selfish system can assume : because, while the 
selfishness which it maintains is as absolute and unremitting as if the ob- 
jects of personal gain were to be found in the wealth, or honors, or sen 
sual pleasures of this earth, this very selfishness is rendered more offensive 
by the noble image of the Deity which is continually presented to our 
mind, and presented in all his benevolence, — not to be loved, but to be 
courted with a mockery of affection. The sensualist of the common sys- 
tem of selfishness, who never thinks of any higher object in the pursuit of 
the little pleasures which he is miserable enough to regard as happiness, 
seems to me, even in the brutal stupidity in which he is sunk, a being more 
worthy of esteem than the selfish of another life ; to whose view God is ever 
present, but who view him always only to feel constantly in their heart 
that, in loving him who has been the dispenser of all these blessings which 
thev have enjoyed, and who has revealed himself in the glorious character 
of the diffuser of an immortality of happiness, they love not the Giver him- 
self, hut only the gifts which they have received, or the gifts that arc prom- 
ised;' — Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. LXXIX Waincwright en- 
deavours to defend Palcy against these and other charges. Vindication of 
Dr. Foley s Theory of Morals, Chap, iv., et passim. 

The strict followers of Paley generally hold that we arc indebted to the 
Christian revelation for our belief in a future retribution. If so, it would 
seem to follow from the passage in the text that none but Christians, or 
those who might be Christians, have any thing to do with "duties." — Ed. 



120 THE MORAL FACULTY 

we daily see men commit, without any remorse, actions, 
which, if performed by another person, they would 
have regarded with the liveliest sentiments of indigna- 
tion and abhorrence. Even in this last case the experi- 
ment is not always perfectly fair ; for where the actor 
has been previously known to us, our judgment is gen- 
erally affected, in a greater or less degree, by our pre- 
possessions or by our prejudices. In contemplating the 
characters exhibited in histories and in novels, the emo- 
tions we feel are the immediate and the genuine result 
of our moral constitution ; and although they may be 
stronger in some men than in others, yet they are in all 
distinctly perceivable, even in those whose want of tem- 
per and of candor render them scarcely conscious of the 
distinction of right and wrong in the conduct of their 
neighbours and acquaintance. And hence, probably, 
(we may observe by the way,) the chief origin of the 
pleasure we experience in this sort of reading. The 
representations of the stage, however, afford the most 
favorable of all opportunities for studying the mora] 
constitution of man. As the mind is here perfectly in- 
different to the parties whose character and conduct are 
the subject of the fable, the judgments it forms can 
hardly fail to be impartial, and the feelings arising from 
these judgments are much more conspicuous in their 
external effects than if the play were perused in the 
closet; for every species of enthusiasm operates more 
forcibly when men are collected in a crowd. On such 
an occasion the slightest hint suggested by the poet 
raises to transport the passions of the audience, and 
forces involuntary tears from men of the greatest re- 
serve and the most correct sense of propriety. The 
crowd does not create the feeling, nor even alter its na- 
ture ; it only enables us to remark its operation on a 
greater scale. In these cases we have surely no time 
for reflection ; and, indeed, the emotions of which we 
are conscious are such as no speculations about our 
own interest could possibly excite. It is in situations 
of this kind that w T e most completely forget ourselves 
as individuals, and feel the most sensibly the existence 






NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 121 

of those moral ties by which Heaven has been pleased 
to bind mankind together. 

IV. Third Argument. The Expediency of Virtue not 
obvigus to common Experience.] Although philosophers 
have shown that a sense of duty and an enlightened 
regard to our own happiness conspire in most instances 
to give the same direction to our conduct, so as to put 
it beyond a doubt that, even in this world, a virtuous 
life is true wisdom, yet this is a truth by no means ob- 
vious to the common sense of mankind, but deduced 
from an extensive view of human affairs, and an accu- 
rate investigation of the remote consequences of our 
different actions. It is from experience and reflection, 
therefore, we learn the connection between virtue and 
happiness ; and, consequently, the great lessons of mo- 
rality which are obvious to the capacity of all mankind 
could never have been suggested to them merely by a 
regard to their own interest. Indeed, this discovery 
which experience makes to us of the connection be- 
tween virtue and happiness, both in the case of indi- 
viduals and of political societies, furnishes one of the 
most pleasing subjects of speculation to the philosopher, 
as it places in a striking point of view the unity of de- 
sign which takes place in our constitution, and opens 
encouraging and delightful prospects with respect to 
the moral government of the Deity. 

It is a just and beautiful observation of Dr. Reid, 
that " although wise men have concluded that virtue is 
the only road to happiness, this conclusion is founded 
chiefly upon the natural respect men have for virtue, 
and the good and happiness that is intrinsic to it, and 
arises from the love of it. If we suppose a man al- 
together destitute of this principle, who considered 
virtue as only the means to another end, there is no 
reason to think that he would ever take it to be the 
road to happiness, but would wander for ever seeking 
this object where it is not to be found." * 

* Essays on the Active Powers, Essay III. Part III. Chap. iv. 
11 



122 THE MORAL FACULTY 

This observation leads me to remark further, that 
the man who is most successful in the pursuit of hap- 
piness is not he who proposes it to himself as the 
great object of his pursuit. To do so, and to be con- 
tinually occupied with schemes on the subject, would 
fill the mind with anxious conjectures about futurity, 
and with perplexing calculations of the various chan- 
ces of good and evil. Whereas the man whose ruling 
principle of action is a sense of duty conducts himself 
in the business of life with boldness, consistency, and 
dignity, and finds himself rewarded with that happiness 
which so often eludes the pursuit of those who exert 
every faculty of the mind in order to attain it. 

Something very similar to this takes place with re 
gard to nations. From the earliest accounts of man- 
kind, politicians have been employed in devising schemes 
of national aggrandizement, and have proceeded on the 
supposition that the prosperity of their own country 
could only be advanced by depressing all others around 
them. It has now been shown, with irresistible evi- 
dence, that those views were founded on mistake, and 
that the prosperity of a country is intimately connected 
with that of its neighbours, insomuch that the enlight- 
ened statesman, instead of embarrassing himself with 
the care of a machine whose parts have become too 
complicated for any human comprehension, finds his la- 
bor reduced to the simple business of observing the rules 
of justice and humanity. It is remarkable, that, long 
before the date of these profound speculations in poli- 
tics, for which we are indebted to Mr. Smith and to the 
French economists, Fenelon was led merely by the 
goodness of his heart, and by his speculative conviction 
of the intimate connection between virtue and happi- 
ness under the moral government of God, to recom- 
* mend a free trade as an expedient measure in policy 
and to reprobate the mean ideas of national jealousy, 
as calculated to frustrate the very ends to which they 
are supposed to be subservient. Indeed, I am inclined 
to think that, as in conducting the affairs of private life, 
" the integrity of the upright man " is his surest guide 



NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 123 

so, in managing the affairs of a great empire, a strong 
sense of justice, and an ardent zeal for the rights and 
for the happiness of mankind, will go further to form a 
great and successful statesman than the most perfect 
acquaintance with political details, unassisted by tha 
direction of these inward monitors. 

An author, too, in our own country, of sound judg- 
ment, and of very accurate commercial information, i 
and who was one of the first in England who turned 
the attention of the public to those liberal notions con- 
cerning trade which are now become so prevalent, ac- 
knowledges that it was by a train of reasoning a priori 
that he was led to his conclusions. " Can we suppose," 
says he, " that Divine Providence has really constituted 
the order of things in such a sort, as to make the rule 
of natural self-preservation inconsistent with the funda- 
mental principle of universal benevolence, and the do- 
ing as we would be done by? For my own part, I 
must confess, I never could conceive that an all-wise, 
just, and benevolent Being would contrive one part of 
his plan to be so contradictory to the other as here sup- 
posed, — that is, would lay us under one obligation as 
to morals, and another as to trade; or, in short, to 
make that to be our duty which is not, upon the whole, 
and generally speaking, (even without the considera- 
tion of a future state,) our interest likewise. 

" Therefore I concluded a priori that there must be 
some flaw or other in the preceding arguments, plausi- 
ble as they seem, and great as they are on the foot 
of human authority. For though the appearance of 
things at first sight makes for this conclusion, 'that 
poor countries must inevitably carry away the trade 
from rich ones, and consequently impoverish them,' the 
fact itself cannot be so." * 

V. Fourth Argument. Moral Judgments in Children 
precede the Calculations of Prudence.] The same con- 



* Tucker's Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects, Tract I, 
p. 20. 



a24 the moral faculty. 

elusion is strongly confirmed by the early period of lift 
at which our moral judgments make their appearance, 
long before children are able to form the general notion 
of happiness, and, indeed, in the very infancy of their 
reason. It is astonishing how powerfully a child of 
sensibility may be affected by any simple narration cal- 
culated to rouse the feelings of pity, of generosity, or 
of indignation, and how very early some minds formed 
in a happy mould are inspired with a consciousness of 
the dignity of their nature, and glow with the enthusi > 
asm of virtue. Dr. Beattie has beautifully painted 
these openings of the moral character in the description 
he gives of the effect produced on his young Edwin by 
the fine old ballad of The Babes in the Wood. 

" But when to horror his amazement rose, 

A gentler strain the beldame would rehearse, — 

A tale of rural life, a tale of woes, 

The orphan babes and guardian uncle fierce. 

O, cruel ! will no pang of pity pierce 

That heart by lust of lucre seared to stone ? 

For sure, if aught of virtue last, or verse, 

To latest times shall tender souls bemoan 
Those helpless orphan babes by thy fell arts undone. 

" See where, with berries smeared, with brambles torn, 
The babes now famished lay them down to die ; 
'Midst the wild howl of darksome woods forlorn, 
Folded in one another's arms they lie. 
Nor friend, nor stranger, hears their dying cry, 
4 For from the town the man returns no more.' 
But thou who Heaven's just vengeance dar'st defy, 
This deed with fruitless tears shall soon deplore, 
When death lays waste thy house, and flames consume thy store. 

" A stifled smile of stern, vindictive joy 
Brightened one moment Edwin's starting tear ; — 
' But why should gold man's feeble mind decoy, 
And innocence thus die by doom severe 1 ' 
O Edwin ! while thy heart is yet sincere, « 

The assaults of discontent and doubt repel ; 
Dark even at noontide is our mortal sphere, 
But let us hope, — to doubt is to rebel, — 
Let us exult in hope that all shall yet be well." * 

* The Minstrel, "Book I. For a more extended statement of the proofs 
of man's moral nature, see Upham's Mental Philosophy, Vol. II. § 207 ei 
teq. Also, Lieber's Political Ethics, Book I. Chap. II. — E». 



HARTLEY. 125 



Section II. 

>RY OF THE FORMA- 
TION OF THE MORAL SENSE BY ASSOCIATION ALONE. 

I. This Theory eludes but in Part the foregoing Argu- 
ments.] The reasonings already stated seem to me to 
furnish a sufficient refutation of the selfish theory of 
morals, as it is explained by the greater number of the 
philosophers who have adopted it ; but, before leaving 
the subject, it is necessary for me to take notice of a 
doctrine fundamentally the same, though modified in 
such a manner as to elude some of the foregoing argu 
ments, — a doctrine which has been maintained of late 
by various English writers of note, and which I suspect 
is at present the prevailing system in that part of the 
island. According to this doctrine, we do, indeed, in 
many cases, approve or disapprove of particular actions, 
without any reference to our own interest at the time ; 
but it is asserted that it was views of self-interest 
which originally created these moral sentiments, and 
led us to associate agreeable or disagreeable emotions 
with human conduct. The origin of the moral faculty, 
in the opinion of these theorists, is precisely analogous 
to that of avarice, or of any of our other factitious 
principles of action. Money, it will not be disputed, 
is at first desired merely on account of its subservience 
to the gratification of our natural desires ; but, in pro- 
cess of time, the association of ideas leads us to regard 
it as a desirable thing in itself, without any reference to 
this subservience or utility, and in many cases it con- 
tiuues to be coveted with an increasing passion, long 
after we have lost all relish for the enjoyments it ena- 
bles us to purchase. In the same manner, a particular 
action which was at first approved or disapproved of, 
merely on account of its supposed tendency with re- 
spect to our own interest, comes, in process of time, to 
be approved or disapproved of the moment it is men- 
tioned, and without any reflection on our part that we 

XI* 



126 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

are able to recollect. Thus, without abandoning the 
old selfish principles, they contrive to evade the force of 
the arguments founded by Hutcheson and others on 
the instantaneousness with which our moral judgments 
are commonly pronounced. This, if I am not mista- 
ken, is the theory of Dr. Law, of Dr. Hartley, of Dr. 
Priestley, of Dr. Paley, and of Dr. Paley's great oracle 
in philosophy, the author of The Light of Nature Pur- 
sued* 

I am ready to acknowledge that this refinement on 
the old selfish system gives it a degree of plausibility 
which it did not originally possess, and obviates one of 
the objections to it formerly stated. But it must be re- 
membered that this was not the only objection, and 
that there are several others which apply both to the 
old and new hypothesis with equal force. 

Among these arguments, what I would lay the 
principal stress on is the degree of experience and 
reflection necessary for discovering the tendency of 
virtue to promote our happiness, compared with the 
very early period of life when the moral sentiments 
display themselves in their full vigor. 

II. Paleifs Doctrine, that Moral Sentiments are gen- 
erated by Imitation, unsatisfactory.] In answer to this, 
it may perhaps be alleged, that, when once moral ideas 
have been formed by the process already described, 
they are caught by infants from their parents or pre- 
ceptors, by a sort of imitation, and without any reflec- 
tion on their part. " There is nothing," says Dr. Paley, 
"which children imitate, or apply more readily, than 
expressions of affection or aversion, of approbation, 
hatred, resentment, and the like ; and when these pas- 
sions and expressions are once connected, (which they 



* Hartley, though he borrowed the hint and general idea from others, 
was chiefly instrumental in giving form and currency to this theory, and 
hence it commonly goes under his name. Observations on Man, Chap. IV. 
Sect. vi. It has found, perhaps, its ablest advocate in James Mill, Analysis 
»f the Human Mind, Chap. XXIII. With bpth it is only part of a mora 
general theory. — Ep. 



PALEY. 127 

will soon be by the same association which unites 
words with their ideas,) the passion will follow the 
expression, and attach upon the object to which the 
child has been accustomed to apply the epithet. In a 
word, when almost every thing else is learned by imita- 
tion, can we wonder to nnd the same cause concerned 
in the generation of our moral sentiments?"* 

The plausibility of this reasoning arises entirely 
from the address with which the author introduces 
indirectly a most important fact with respect to the 
human mind ; a fact which, by engrossing the attention 
of the reader, is apt to prevent his perceiving, on a 
superficial view, its inapplicability to the point in dis- 
pute, or at least its insufficiency to establish in its full 
extent the conclusion which is deduced from it. That 
imitation and the association of ideas have a great in- 
fluence on our moral judgments and emotions, more 
particularly in our early years, every man must be 
sensible who has reflected at all on the subject; and it 
is a fact which deserves the serious consideration of 
all who have any concern in the education of youth. 
But does it therefore follow, that imitation and the 
association of ideas are sufficient to account for the 
origin of the power of moral perception, and for the 
origin of our notions of right and wrong ?f On the 
contrary, the tendency we have in the infancy of our 
reason to follow in our moral judgments the example 
of those whom we love and reverence, and the influ- 
ence of association, sometimes in guiding and some- 
times in misleading us in what we praise or blame, 
presuppose the existence of the power of moral judg- 



* Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. V. 

t Mr. Stewart has said in another connection, Philosophy of the Tinman 
Mind, First Part, Chap. V. Part ii. Sect. ii. : — " The association of ideas can 
never account for the origin of a new notion, or of a pleasure essentially 
different from all the others which we know. It may, indeed, enable us 
to conceive how a thing- indifferent in itself may become a source of 
pleasure, by being connected in the mind with something else which is 
naturally agreeable; but it presupposes, in every instance, the existence of 
those notions and those feelings which it is its province to combine." 
— Ed. 



128 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

ment, and of the general notions of right and wrong. 
The power of these adventitious causes over the mind 
is so great, that there is perhaps no particular practice 
which we may not be trained to approve of or to con- 
demn; but wherever this happens, the operation of 
these causes supposes us to be already in possession 
of some faculty by which we are capable of besto wing- 
approbation or blame. It is worthy, too, of remark, 
that it is only with respect to particular practices that 
education is capable of misleading us ; for even when 
education perverts the judgment, it produces its effect 
by employing the instrumentality of our moral princi- 
ples. In many cases it will be found that it operates 
by combining a number of principles against one; by 
associating, for example, a number of w T orthy dispo- 
sitions and amiable affections with habits which, if 
divested of such an alliance, would be regarded as 
mean and contemptible. 

To all this we may add, that our speculative judg- 
ments concerning truth and falsehood, as well as our 
judgments concerning right and wrong, are liable to 
be influenced by imitation and the association of ideas. 
Even in mathematics, when a pupil of a tender age 
enters first on the study of the elements, his judgment 
leans not a little on that of his teacher, and he feels 
his confidence in the truth of his conclusions sensibly 
confirmed by his faith in the superior understanding of 
those whom he looks up to with respect. It is only 
by degrees that he emancipates himself from this de- 
pendence, and comes at last to perceive the irresistible 
force of demonstrative evidence; and yet it will not 
be inferred from this that the power of reasoning is the 
result of imitation or of habit. The conclusion men- 
tioned above with respect to the power of moral judg- 
ment is equally erroneous. 

III. Paleifs Statement of the Question as to the Ex« 
istence of a Moral Sense.'] The looseness and sophis- 
try of Paley's reasonings on the subject of the moral 
faculty may be traced to the vague and indistinct con* 



PALEY. 129 

ception he had formed of the point in question. In 
proof of this I shall transcribe his own words from his 
Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. It is 
necessary to premise, that he introduces his argument 
against the existence of a moral sense by quoting a 
story from Valerius Maxim us, which I shall present 
to my readers in Dr. Paley's version. 

" The father of Caius Toranius had been proscribed 
by the Triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to 
the interests of that party, discovered to the officers 
who were in pursuit of his father's life the place where 
he concealed himself, and gave them withal a descrip- 
tion by which they might distinguish his person when 
they found him. The old man, more anxious for the 
safety and fortunes of his son than about the little that 
might remain of his own life, began immediately to 
inquire of the officers who seized him, whether his son 
was well, — whether he had done his duty to the satis- 
faction of his generals. ' That son,' replied one of the 
officers, ' so dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us ; 
by his information thou art apprehended and diest.' 
The officer with this struck a poniard to his heart, and 
the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his 
fate as by the means to which he owed it." 

" Now," says Dr. Paley, " the question is, whether, 
if this story were related to the wild boy caught some 
years ago in the woods of Hanover, or to a savage 
without experience and without instruction, cut off in 
his infancy from all intercourse with his species, and 
consequently under no possible influence of example, 
authority, education, sympathy, or habit, — whether, I 
say, such a one would feel, upon the relation, any de- 
gree of that sentiment of disapprobation of Toranius's 
conduct which we feel, or not. 

" They who maintain the existence of a moral sense, 
of innate maxims, of a natural conscience, that the love 
of virtue and hatred of vice are instinctive, or the per- 
ception of right and wrong intuitive, (all of which are 
only different ways of expressing the same opinion,) 
affirm that he would. 



130 THE MORAL FACULTY, 

" They who deny the existence of a moral sense, 
&c., affirm that he would not. 

" And upon this issue is joined." * 

To those who are at all acquainted with the history 
of this dispute, it must appear evident that the question 
is here completely misstated; and that, in the whole 
of Dr. Paley's subsequent argument on the subject, 
he combats a phantom of his own imagination. The 
opinion which he ascribes to his antagonists has been 
loudly and repeatedly disavowed by all the most emi- 
nent moralists who have disputed Locke's reasonings 
against innate practical principles; and is, indeed, so 
very obviously absurd, that it never could have been 
for a moment entertained by any person in his senses. 

Did it ever enter into the mind of the wildest the- 
orist to imagine that the sense of seeing would enable 
a man, brought up from the moment of his birth in 
utter darkness, to form a conception of light and col- 
ors ? But would it not be equally rash to conclude, 
from the extravagance of such a supposition, that the 
sense of seeing is not an original part of the human 
frame ? 

The above quotation from Paley forces me to re- 
mark further, that, in combating the supposition of a 
moral sense, he has confounded together, as only differ- 
ent ways of expressing the same opinion, a variety of 
systems, which are regarded by all our best philoso- 
phers, not only as essentially distinct, but as in some 
measure opposed to each other. The system of Hutch- 
eson, for example, is identified with that of Cudworth, 
to which (as will afterwards appear) it stands in direct 
opposition. But although, in this instance, the author's 
logical discrimination does not appear to much advan- 
tage, the sweeping censure thus bestowed on so many 
of our most celebrated ethical theories has the merit of 
throwing a very strong light on that particular view of 
the subject which it is the aim of his reasonings to es- 
tablish in contradiction to them all.f 

* Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. V. 

t On the subject of Paley's illustration cited in the text, Dr. Whewell 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 131 



Section III. 

THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF HUMAN NATURE NOT DIS- 
PROVED BY THE DIVERSITY IN Men's MORAL JUDG- 
MENTS. 

I. How far and in what Way our Moral Nature may 
be affected by Education.] In the preceding observa- 
tions I have endeavoured to prove that the moral facul- 
ty is an original principle of our constitution, which is 



remarks : — "To expect to obtain moral axioms by referring the question 
to a jury of savages, or of men nearly approaching to savages in preju- 
dice, ignorance, or passion, would certainly be a very wild expectation ; 
and I hope it will not be considered a defect in any moral system to which 
we may be led, that it does not satisfy such an expectation as this. The 
notion, that an appeal to such a jury is the way to test moral axioms, is 
something like Paley's proposal of bringing the narration of an atrocious 
crime before Peter, the wild boy, who was bred up, or rather grew up, like 
a wild beast ; and of doing this, in order to discern whether man has a nat- 
ural abhorrence of crime. Paley himself points out the difficulty which 
makes such an experiment impossible : — ' If,' he says, ' he could be made 
to understand the story.' But it is evident that he could not be made to 
understand the story, except by growing up as a .man among men, and 
casing to be a wild boy. And, in like manner, we must say of a supposed 
promiscuous jury of men, by whom you would test our moral axioms, 
If these men are so savage, and ignorant, and passionate, as to have in 
them the attributes of men imperfectly unfolded, they cannot tell you what 
moral truths are evident to man as man.'''' 

And again : — " Truths may be self-evident when we have made a cer- 
tain progress in thinking, which are not self-evident when we begin to think. 
And this may be, not because the truths thus later discerned are depend- 
ent on the prerequisite truths by any logical tie, or can be inferred from 
them by argument ; but because, by the train of thought by which we 
come to see those earlier gleams of truth, the mind is unfolded and instruct- 
ed, so as to perceive the later and fuller light. This may be so, because 
in the process of thought thus previously gone through we have learnt to 
classify and distinguish the actions of men around us, or our own feelings 
and impulses within us. It may be that to groups and classes and rela- 
tions of emotions and sentiments we have given names ; and that through 
these names language has exercised its power of aiding thought, and has 
enabled us to see what, without such aid, we could not see. In these ways, 
and in others, moral truths may become evident to us, when we have made 
some little advance in the development of our moral nature, and in the 
power of apprehending such truth ; although, so long as we were half im- 
bruted by the absence of any calm and continued thought on such sub- 
jects, and by the scantiness of our acquaintance with those relations 
among men which are the materials for such thought, we were insensible to 



132 



THE MORAL FACULTY. 



not resolvable into any other principle or principles 
more general than itself; in particular, that it is not 
resolvable into self-love, or a prudential regard to our 
own interest. In order, however, completely to estab- 
lish the existence of the moral faculty as an essential 
and universal part of human nature, it is necessary to 
examine with attention the objections which have been 
stated to this conclusion by some writers, who were 
either anxious to display their ingenuity by accounting 
in a different manner for the origin of our moral ideas, 
or who wished to favor the cause of skepticism by ex- 



the evidence which now seems so glaring. It requires a culture of the hu- 
man mind to make that evident which, nevertheless, is evident by the na- 
ture of the human mind. 

"And. in truth, we cannot help asking why we should go to savages 
for the genuine voice of human nature. Why should it be supposed that 
men are more properly me??,, because in them some of the most important 
attributes of humanity remain latent and undeveloped? If cultured men 
see, as evident in morals, what savages do not see as evident, are not cul- 
tured men still ??;e?? ? And all that they know and think, in addition to 
what savages know and think, did they not come to know it by the use of 
their human faculties 1 The early Romans called every stranger an enemy ; 
every peregrinus was hostis. The later Romans filled the theatre with 
thunders of applause, when the poet made the actor say, 

' Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum pitto.'' 

Which of these two was the genuine voice of humanity ? Was not the 
latter evidently the assent to the irresistible evidence of a moral truth ? 
Was that earlier practical denial of this moral truth really the utterance of 
a moral conviction 1 Was it not an utterance which came from man, not 
as the utterance of conviction, but of uncontrolled fear and anger? not an 
articulate utterance in the name of humanity, but an inarticulate cry, bor- 
rowing part of its import from the ferine nature of the nation 1 It was a 
trace of the wolf's milk." — Lectures on Systematic Morality, Lect. II. pp. 
34, 38. See also Lieber's Political Ethics, Book II. Chap. III., and Sedg- 
wick's Discourse on the Studies of the University, pp. 57 et seq., and Appen- 
dix (E). 

; ' Peter the Wild Boy" made a great noise among scientific men in the 
early part of the last century. "Swift has immortalized him in his hu- 
morous production, It cannot rain, but it pours; or, London strewed with Par- 
ities. Linnams gave him a niche in the Systema Naturae, under the de- 
nomination of Juvenis Llanoveranus ; Buffon, De Paauw, and J. J. Rous- 
seau have extolled him as the true child of nature, the genuine unsophisticated 
man. Monboddo is still more enthusiastic, declaring his appearance to be 
a much more important occurrence than the discovery of the planet Ura- 
nus." — Lawrence's Natural History of Man, Chap. II. He turned out to 
be an idiotic boy, who had been lost in the woods, or driven into them and 
abandoned, about a year before he was brought into such notice. - Ed. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 133 

plaining away the reality and immutability of moral 
distinctions. 

Among these objections, that which merits the most 
careful consideration, from the characters of those by 
whom it is maintained, is founded on the possibility of 
explaining the fact without increasing the number of 
original principles in our constitution. The rules of 
morality, it has been supposed, were, in the first in- 
stance, brought to light by the sagacity of philosophers 
and politicians; and it is only in consequence of the 
influence of education that they appear to form an 
original part of the human frame. The diversity of 
opinions among different nations witl? respect to the 
morality of particular actions has beeii jonsidered as a 
strong confirmation of this doctrine. 

But the power of education, although great, is con- 
fined within certain limits. It is, indeed, much more 
extensive than philosophers once believed, as sufficient- 
ly appears from those modern discoveries, with respect 
to the distant parts of the globe, which have so won- 
derfully enlarged our knowledge of human nature, and 
which show clearly that many sentiments and opinions, 
which had been formerly regarded as inseparable from 
the nature of man, are the results of accidental situa- 
tion. If our forefathers, however, went into one ex- 
treme on this point, we seem to be at present in no 
small danger of going into the opposite one, by con- 
sidering man as entirely a factitious being, that maybe 
moulded into any form by education and fashion. 

I have said that the power of education is confined 
within certain limits. The reason is obvious, for it is 
by cooperating with the natural principles of the mind 
that education produces its effects. Nay, this very 
susceptibility of education, which is acknowledged to 
belong universally to the race, presupposes the ex- 
istence of certain principles which are common to all 
mankind. 

The influence of education in diversifying the ap- 
pearances which the moral constitution of man exhib- 
its in different instances depends chiefly on that law of 
12 



134 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

our constitution which was formerly called the associa- 
tion of ideas ; and this law supposes, in every case, 
that there are opinions and feelings essential to the hu- 
man frame, by a combination with which external cir- 
cumstances lay hold of the mind, and adapt it to its 
accidental situation. What we daily see happen in 
the trifling article of dress may help us to conceive 
how the association of ideas operates in matters of 
more serious consequence. Fashion, it is well known, 
can reconcile us, in the course of a few weeks, to the 
most absurd and fantastical ornament; but. does it fol- 
low from this that fashion could create our ideas of 
beauty and elegance? During the time we have seen 
this ornament worn, it has been confined, in a great 
measure, to those whom we consider as models of 
taste, and has been gradually associated with the im- 
pressions produced by the real elegance of their appear- 
ance and manner. When it pleases by itself, the ef- 
fect is not to be ascribed to the thing considered ab- 
stractedly, nor to any change which our general notions 
of beauty have undergone, but to the impressions with 
which it has been generally connected, and which it 
naturally recalls to the mind. The case is nearly the 
same with our moral sentiments. A man of splendid 
virtues attracts some esteem also to his imperfections, 
and, if placed in a conspicuous situation, may corrupt 
the moral sentiments of the multitude in the same 
manner in which he may introduce an absurd or fantas- 
tical ornament by his whimsical taste in the articles of 
dress. The commanding influence of Cato's virtues 
seems to have produced somewhat of this effect on the 
minds of some of his admirers. He was accused, we 
are told, of intemperance in wine ; nor do his apolo- 
gists pretend altogether to deny the charge. " But," 
says one of them, " it would be much easier to prove 
that intemperance is a decent and respectable quality, 
than that Cato could be guilty of any vice." " Catoni 
ebrietas objecta est ; et facilius efnciet, quisquis obje- 
cerit, hoc crimen honestum, quam turpem Catonem." 
In general it may be remarked, that as education 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 135 

may vary in particular cases the opinions of individu- 
als with respect to the objects of taste, without being 
able to create our notions of beauty or deformity, of 
grandeur or meanness, so education may vary our 
sentiments with respect to particular actions, but could 
not create our notions of right and wrong, of merit 
and demerit.* 

II. Diversity in Men's Moral Judgments.] With re- 



* It is observed by Condorcet in his Eloge on Euler, " That, if ive except 
the common maxims of morality, there is no one truth which can boast of 
having been so generally adopted, or through such a succession of ages, as 
certain ridiculous and pernicious errors." The assertion, although not 
without some foundation in fact, is manifestly expressed by this author in 
terms too strong and unqualified. I quote it here chiefly on account of 
the remarkable concession whieh it involves in favor of the fundamental 
principles of morality ; — a subject on which it has been generally alleged, 
by skeptical writers, that our opinions are more liable than on most others 
to be warped by the influence of education and fashion. 

[Sir James Mackintosh is a strenuous asserter of the general uniformity 
of men's moral judgments. " I do not speak of the theory of morals, 
but of the rule of life. First examine the fact, and see whether, from the 
earliest times, any improvement, or even any change, has been made in 
the practical rules of human conduct. Look at the code of Moses. 
I speak of it now as a mere human composition, without considering its 
sacred origin. Considering it merely in that light, it is the most ancient 
and the most curious memorial of the early history of mankind. More 
than three thousand years have elapsed since the composition of the Pen- 
tateuch ; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in what important respects 
the rule of life has varied since thai? distant period. Let the Institutes of 
Menu be explored with the same view ; we shall arrive at the same conclu- 
sion. Let the books of false religion be opened ; it will be found that 
their moral system is, in all its grand features, the same. The impostors 
who composed them were compelled to pay this homage to the uniform 
moral sentiments of the world. Examine the codes of nations, those 
autbentic depositories of the moral judgments of men; you everywhere 
find the same rules prescribed, the same duties imposed: even the boldest 
of those ingenious skeptics who have attacked every other opinion has 
spared the sacred and immutable simplicity of the rules of life. In our 
common duties, Bayle and Hume agree Avith Bossuet and Barrow. 
Such as the rule was at the first dawn of history, such it continues till the 
present day. Ages roll over mankind ; mighty nations pass away like a 
shadow; virtue alone remains the same, immortal and unchangeable." — 
Memoirs, by his Son, Vol. I. Chap. III. p. 120. 

Even should we think that the statement, as here made, needs further 
qualification, there can be no doubt that the common opinion errs still 
more on the other side. One reason why the points of difference in morals 
arc thought to be more numerous than they really are is, that these along 
are made the subject of frequent discussion ; and properly so, because it ia 
only in this way that they can be cleared up, and reconciled. — Ed.| 



136 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

spect to the historical facts which have been quoted 
as proofs that the moral judgments of mankind are 
entirely factitious, we may venture to assert in general, 
that none of them justify so very extravagant a con- 
clusion ; that a great part of them are the effects of 
misrepresentation ; and that others lead to a conclu- 
sion directly the reverse of what has been drawn from 
them. It would hardly be necessary, in the present 
times, to examine them seriously, were it not for the 
authority which, in the opinion of many, they still con- 
tinue to derive from the sanction of Mr. Locke. 

" Have there not been whole nations," says this 
eminent philosopher, " and those of the most civilized 
people, among whom the exposing their children, 
and leaving them in the fields to perish by want or 
wild beasts, has been the practice, as little condemned 
or scrupled as the begetting them ? Do they not still, 
in some countries, put them into the same graves with 
their mothers, if they die in child-birth, or despatch 
them, if a pretended astrologer declares them to have 
unhappy stars ? And are there not places where, at 
a certain age, they kill or expose their parents without 
any remorse at all? Where, then, are our innate ideas 
of justice, piety, gratitude ; or where is that universal 
consent that assures'us there are such inbred rules ? " * 

To this question of Locke's so satisfactory an 
answer has been given by various writers, that it 
would be superfluous to enlarge on the subject here. 
It is sufficient to refer, on the origin of infanticide, to 
Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments ; f and on the 
alleged impiety among some rude tribes of children 
towards their parents, to Charron Sur la Sagesse, J and 
to an excellent note of Dr. Beattie's in his Essay on 
Fable and Romance. The reasonings of the last two 



* Book I. Chap. III. § 9. 

t Part V. Chap. II. 

% Liv, II. Chap. VIII. Charron's argument is evidently pointed at cer- 
tain passages in Montaigne's Essai/s, in which that ingenious writer has 
fallen into a train of thought very similar to that which is the groundwork 
of Locke's reasonings against innate practical principles. 






DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 137 

Writers are strongly confirmed by Mr. Ellis, in his 
Voyage for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage, and 
by Mr. Curtis (afterwards Sir Roger Curtis), in a 
paper containing Some Particulars urith Respect to the 
Country of Labr adore, published in the Philosophical 
Transactions for the year 1773. 

Li order to form a competent judgment on facts of 
this nature, it is necessary to attend to a variety of 
considerations which have been too frequently over- 
looked by philosophers ; and, in particular, to make 
proper allowances for the three following: — 

1. For the different situations in which mankind are 
placed, partly by the diversity in their physical circum- 
stances, and partly by the unequal degrees of civiliza- 
tion which they have attained. 

2. For the diversity of their speculative opinions, 
arising from their unequal measures of knowledge or 
of capacity ; and, 

3. For the different moral import of the same action 
under different systems of external behaviour. 

III. First Cause of Diversity in Metis Moral Judg- 
ments. Difference of Condition. (1.) As regards Prop- 
erty.] In a part of the globe where the soil and cli- 
mate are so favorable as to yield all the necessaries 
and many of the luxuries of life with little or no labor 
on the part of man, it may reasonably be expected 
that the ideas of men will be more loose concerning 
the rights of property than where nature has been less 
liberal in her gifts. As the right of property is found- 
ed, in the first instance, on the natural sentiment, that 
the. laborer is entitled to the fruits of his own labor, it 
is not surprising that, where little or no labor is re- 
quired for the gratification of our desires, theft should 
be regarded as a very venial offence. There is here 
no contradiction in the moral judgments of mankind. 
Men feel there, with respect to those articles which we 
appropriate with the most anxious care, as we, in this 
part of the world, feel with respect to air, light, and 
water. If a country could be found in which no in« 
12* 



138 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

justice was apprehended in depriving an individual of 
an enjoyment which he had provided for himself by a 
long course of persevering industry, the fact would be 
something to the purpose. But this, we may venture 
to say, has not yet been found to be the case in any 
quarter of the globe. That the circumstance I have 
mentioned is the true explanation of the prevalence of 
theft in the South Sea Islands, and of the venial light 
in which it is there regarded, appears plainly from the 
accounts of our most intelligent navigators. 

" There was another circumstance,' 5 says Captain 
Cook, speaking of the inhabitants of the Sandwich 
Islands, " in which the people perfectly resembled the 
other islanders we had visited. At first, on their enter- 
ing the ship, they endeavoured to steal every thing 
they came near, or rather to take it openly, as what 
we either should not resent, or not hinder" (January, 
1778.) 

In another place, talking of the same people : — 
" These islanders," says he, " merited our best com- 
mendations in their commercial intercourse, never 
once attempting to cheat us, either ashore or alongside 
the ships. Some of them, indeed, as already mention- 
ed, at first ^ betrayed a thievish disposition; or rather, 
they thought that they had a right to every thing they 
could lay their hands on ; but they soon laid aside a 
conduct which we convinced them they could not 
persevere in with impunity." 

In another part of the voyage, (April, 1778,) in 
which he gives an account of the American Indians 
near King George's Sound, he contrasts their notions 
on the subject of theft with those of the South Sea 
Islanders. " The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, 
rather than be idle, would steal any thing they could 
lay their hands on, without ever considering whether it 
could be of use to them or no. The novelty of the 
object was with them a sufficient motive for endeav- 
ouring, by any indirect means, to get possession of it ; 
which marked, that in such cases they were rather 
actuated by a childish curiosity than by a dishonest 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 139 

disposition, regardless of the modes of supplying real 
wants. The inhabitants of Nootka, who invaded oar 
property, have not such an apology. They were 
thieves in the strictest sense of the word; for they pil- 
fered nothing from us but what they knew could be 
converted to the purposes of private utility, and had 
a real value, according to their estimation of things." 
He adds, that he had " abundant proof that stealing is 
much practised among themselves " ; — but it is evi- 
dent, from the manner in which he expresses himself, 
that theft was not here considered in the same venial or 
indifferent light as in those parts of the globe where 
the bounty of nature deprives exclusive property of al- 
most all its value.* 

In general it will be found, that the ideas of rude 
nations on the subject of property are precise and de- 
cided, in proportion to the degree of labor to which they 
have been habituated in procuring the means of sub- 
sistence. Of one barbarous people, (the Greenlanders,) 
we are expressly told by a Yery authentic writer, 
(Crantz,) that their regard to property acquired by labor 
is not only strict, but approaches to superstition. " Not 
one of them," says he, " will appropriate to himself a 
sea-dog in which he finds one or more harpoons with 
untorn thongs ; nor even carry away drift, wood, or 
other things thrown up by the sea, if they are covered 
with a stone, because they consider this as an indication 
that they have already been appropriated by some other 
person." f 

* See, also, Anderson's Remarks, February, 1777, and December, 1777. 

t History of Greenland, Vol. I. p. 181. The following- passage of Voltaire 
is perhaps liable to the charge of over-rafineinent ; but it sufficiently shows 
.hat he saw clearly the general principle on which the lax opinions of 
sonic nations on the subject of theft are to be explained. 

"On a beau nous dire, qu'a Laccdemone, le larcin 6toit ordonne; ce 
n'est la qu'un abus des mots. La meme chose que nous appellons larcin, 
n'etoit point commandee a Lacedemonc ; mais dans une ville, ou tout 
etoit en commun, la permission qu'on donnoit de prendre habilement ce 
que des particuliers s'approprioicnt contre la loi, etoit une maniere do 
punir l'esprit de propriete defendu chez ces peuples. Le lien et le mien 
etoit un crime, dont ce que nous appellons larcin etoit la punition." — « 
Voltaire's Account of Newton's Discoveries. Sonic of his other remarks on 
Locke are very curious. 



140 THE MORAL FACULTY 

IV. (2.) As regards the Uses of Money.] Another 
very remarkable instance of an apparent diversity in 
the moral judgments of mankind occurs in the contra- 
dictory opinions entertained by different ages and na- 
tions on the moral lawfulness of exacting interest for 
the use of money. Aristotle, in the first book of his 
Politics (6th chap.), speaking of the various ways of 
getting money, considers agriculture and the rearing of 
cattle as honorable and natural, because the earth itself, 
and all animals, are by nature fruitful ; " but to make 
money from money, which is barren and unfruitful," he 
pronounces " to be the worst of all modes of accumu- 
lation, and the utmost corruption of artificial degen- 
eracy. By commerce," he observes, " money is perverted 
from the purpose of exchange to that of gain. Still, 
however, this gain is obtained by the mutual transfer 
of different objects; but usury, by transferring merely 
the same object from one hand to another, generates 
money from money ; and the interest thas generated is 
therefore called 'offspring,' as being precisely of the 
same nature, and of the same specific substance, with 
that from which it proceeds."* — Similar sentiments 
with respect to usury (under which title was compre- 



* Gillics's Translation. The argument of Aristotle is so extremely ab- 
surd and puerile, that it could never have led this most acute and profound 
philosopher to the conclusion it is employed to support, but may be justly 
numbered among the instances in which speculative men have exerted 
their ingenuity to defend, by sophistical reasonings, the established preju- 
dices of the times in which they lived, and in which the supposed evidence of 
the inference has served, in their estimation, to compensate for the weakness 
of the premises. It is, however, worthy of remark, that the argument, 
such as it is, was manifestly suggested by the etymology of the word tokos 
(interest), from the verb tlktcd, pario, to breed or bring forth ; an etvmolo<> y 
which seems to imply that the principal generates the interest. The mdh 
idea, too, occurs in the scene between Antonio and Shylock, in the Mer- 
chant of Venice : — 

" If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not 
As to thy friends; (for when did friendship take 
A breed of barren metal from his friend?) 
But lend it rather to thine enemy. 
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face 
Exact the penalty." 

Act I. Scene III. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 141 

hended every premium, great or small, which was re- 
ceived by way of interest) occur in the Roman writers. 
" Concerning the arts," says Cicero, in his first book 
De Officiis, " and the means of acquiring wealth which 
are to be accounted liberal, and which mean, the fol- 
lowing are the sentiments usually entertained. In the 
first place, those means of gain are in the least credit 
which incur the hatred of mankind, as those of tax- 
gatherers and usurers." The same author (in the sec- 
ond book of the same work) mentions an anecdote of 
old Cato, whoj being asked what he thought of lending 
money upon interest, answered, " What do you think 
of the crime of murder ? " 

In the code of the Jewish legislator, the regulations 
concerning loans imply manifestly, that to exact a. pre- 
mium for the thing lent was an act of unkindness unsuit- 
able to the fraternal relation in which the Israelites stood 
to one another. " Thou shalt not lend," it is said, " upon 
usury to thy brother : usury of money, usury of victuals, 
usury of any thing that is lent upon usury. Unto a 
stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy 
brother thou shalt not lend upon usury ; that the Lord 
thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine 
hand to, in the land whither thou goest to possess it." * 

In consequence of this prohibition in the Mosaic law, 
the primitive Christians, conceiving that they ought to 
look on all men, both Jews and Gentiles, as brethren, 
inferred, (partly, perhaps, from the prohibition given by 
Moses, and partly from the general prejudices then prev- 
alent against usury,) that it was against the Christian 
law to take interest from any man. And, accordingly, 
there is no crime against which the Fathers in their 
homilies declaim with more vehemence. The same ab- 
horrence of usury of every kind appears in the canon 
law, insomuch that the penalty by that law is excom- 
munication; nor is the usurer allowed burial until he 
has made restitution of what he got by usury, or secu- 
rity is given that restitution shall be made after hia 

* Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. 



142 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

death. About the middle of the seventeenth century, 
we find the divines of the Church of England very 
often preaching against all interest for the use of money, 
even that which the law allowed, as a gross immorality. 
And not much earlier it was the general opinion, both 
of divines and lawyers, that, although law permitted a 
certain rate of interest to prevent greater evils, and in 
compliance with the general corruption of men, (as the 
law of Moses permitted polygamy, and authorized di- 
vorce for slight causes, among the Jews,) yet that the 
rules of morality did not sanction the taking any inter- 
est for money ; at least, that it was a very doubtful point 
whether they did. The same opinion was maintained 
in the English House of Commons by some of the 
members who were lawyers, in the debate upon a bill 
brought in not much more than a hundred years ago. 

I need not remark how completely the sentiments of 
mankind are now changed upon the subject; insomuch 
that a moralist or divine would expose himself to ridi- 
cule if he should seriously think it worth his while to 
use arguments to prove the lawfulness of a practice 
which was formerly held in universal abhorrence. The 
consistency of this practice (in cases where the debtor 
is able to pay the interest) with the strictest morality 
appears to us so manifest and indisputable, that it would 
be thought equally absurd to argue for it as against it.* 

The diversity of judgments, however, on this particu- 
lar question, instead of proving a diversity in the moral 



* A learned gentleman, indeed, of the Middle Temple, Mr. Plowden, 
(a lawyer, I believe, of the Roman Catholic persnasion,) who published, 
about thirty years ago, a Treatise upon the Law of Usury and Annuities, has 
employed no less than fifty-nine pages of his work in considering the law 
of usury in a spiritual view, in order to establish the following conclusion : 
— " That it is not sinful, but lawful, for a British subject to receive legal 
interest for the money he may lend, whether he receive it in annual divi- 
dends from the public, or in interest from private individuals who may 
have borrowed it upon mortgage, bond, or otherwise." M. Necker, too, in 
the notes annexed to his Elorje on Colbert, thought it necessary for him to 
offer an apology to the Church of Rome for the freedom with which he 
ventured to write upon this critical subject. " Ce que je dis de inteivt est 
sous un point de vuc politique, et n'a point de rapport avec les respectables 
rnaximes de la religion sur ce point." 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 143 

judgments of mankind, affords an illustration of the 
uniformity of their opinions concerning the fundamen- 
tal rules of moral duty. 

In a state where there is little or no commerce, the 
great motive for borrowing being necessity, the value 
of a loan cannot be ascertained by calculation, as it 
may be where money is borrowed for the purposes of 
trade. In such circumstances, therefore, every money- 
lender who accepts of interest will be regarded in the 
same odious light in which pawnbrokers are considered 
among us; and the man "who putteth out his money 
to usury" will naturally be classed (as he is in the 
words of Scripture) with him who " taketh reward 
against the innocent." f 

These considerations, while they account for the 
origin of the opinions concerning the practice of tak- 
ing interest for money among those nations of an- 
tiquity whose commercial transactions were few and 
insignificant, will be sufficient, at the same time, to 
establish its reasonableness and equity in countries 
where money is most commonly borrowed for the pur- 
poses of commercial profit, and where, of consequence, 
the use of it has a fixed and determinate value, de- 
pending (like that of any commodity in general re- 
quest) on the circumstances of the market at the time. 
In such countries both "parties are benefited by the trans- 
action, and even the state is a gainer in the end. The 
lenders of money are frequently widows and orphans, 
who subsist on the interest of their slender funds, 
while the borrowers as frequently belong to the most 
opulent class of the community, who wish to enlarge 
their capital and extend their trade ; and who, by doing 
so, are enabled to give further encouragement to in- 
dustry, and to supply labor and bread to the in- 
digent. 

The prejudices, therefore, against usury among the 
ancient philosophers were the natural result of the 
state of society which fell under their observation, 

t Ps. xv. 5. 



144 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

The prohibition of usury among the Jews in their own 
mutual transactions, while they were permitted to take 
a premium for the money which they lent to strangers, 
was in perfect consistency with the other principles of 
their political code ; commerce being interdicted, as 
tending to an intercourse with idolaters, and mortga- 
ges prevented by the indefeasible right which every 
man had to his lands. 

V. (3.) Want of an Efficient Police.] I shall only 
mention one instance more to illustrate the effects of 
different states of society in modifying the moral judg- 
ments of mankind. It relates to the crime of assassina- 
tion, which we now justly consider as the most dreadful 
of any ; but which must necessarily have been viewed 
in a very different light when laws and magistrates 
were unknown, and when the only check on injustice 
was the principle of resentment. As it is the nature 
of this principle, not only to seek the punishment of 
the delinquent, but to prompt the injured person to 
inflict the punishment with his own hand, so in every 
country the criminal jurisdiction of the magistrate has 
been the last branch of his authority that was estab- 
lished. Where the police, therefore, is weak, murders 
must not only be more frequent, but are really less 
criminal, than in a society like ours, where the private 
rights of individuals are completely protected by law, 
and where there hardly occurs an instance, excepting 
in a case of self-defence, in which one man can be 
justified for shedding the blood of another. And even 
when, in a rude age, a murder is committed from un- 
justifiable motives of self-interest or jealousy, yet the 
frequency of the occurrence prevents the minds of 
men from revolting so strongly at the sight of blood 
as we do at present. It is on this very principle that 
Mr. Mitford accounts for the manners and ideas that 
prevailed in the heroic ages of Greece. 

But it is unnecessary, on this head, to appeal to the 
history of early times, or of distant nations. In our 
own country of Scotland, about two centuries ago, 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 145 

what shocking murders were perpetrated, and seem- 
ingly without remorse, by men who were by no means 
wholly destitute of a sense of religion and morality ! 
Dr. Robertson remarks, that " Buchanan relates the 
murder of Cardinal Beatoun and of Rizzio without 
expressing those feelings which are natural to a man, 
or that indignation which became an historian. Knox, 
whose mind was fiercer and more unpolished, talks of 
the death of Beatoun and of the Duke of Guise, not 
only without censure, but with the utmost exultation. 
On the other hand, the Bishop of Ross mentions the 
assassination of the Earl of Murray with some degree 
of applause. Blackwood dwells on it with the most 
indecent triumph ; and ascribes it directly to the hand 
of God. Lord Ruthven, the principal actor in the 
conspiracy against Rizzio, wrote an account of it some 
time before his own death ; and in all his long narra- 
tive there is not one expression of regret, or one symp- 
tom of compunction, for a crime no less dishonorable 
than barbarous. Morton, equally guilty of the same 
crime, entertained the same sentiments concerning it ; 
and in his last moments, neither he himself, nor the 
ministers who attended him, seem to have considered 
it as an action which called for repentance. Even then 
he talks of 'David's slaughter' as coolly as if it had 
been an innocent or commendable deed."* 

The reflections of Dr. Robertson on these assassina- 
tions, which were formerly so common in this country, 
are candid and judicious. " In consequence of the limit- 



* History of Scotland, Book IV. The following lines, in which Sir 
David Lindsay reprobates the murder of his contemporary and enemy, 
Cardinal Beatoun, deserve to be added to the instances quoted by Dr. 
Ivobertson, as an illustration of the moral sentiments of our ancestors. 
They arc expressed with a natvetd which places in a strong light both t'ue 
moral and religious principles of that age. 

" As for this Cardinal, I grant, 
He was a man we well might want ; 

God will forgive it soon: 
But of a sooth, the truth to say, 
Altho' the loun be well away, 
The act was foully done." 

13 



146 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

ed power of our princes, the administration of justice 
was extremely feeble and dilatory. An attempt to 
punish the crimes of a chieftain, or even of his vassals, 
often excited rebellions and civil wars. To nobles 
haughty and independent, among whom the causes of 
discord were many and unavoidable ; who were quick 
in discerning an injury, and impatient to revenge it; 
who esteemed it infamous to submit to an enemy, and 
cowardly to forgive him ; who considered the right of 
punishing those who had injured them as a privilege 
of their order, and a mark of independency ; such slow 
proceedings were extremely unsatisfactory. The blood 
of their adversary was, in their opinion, the only thing 
that could wash away an affront. Where that was 
not shed, their revenge was disappointed ; their courage 
became suspected, and a stain was left on their honor. 
That vengeance which the impotent hand of the magis- 
trate could not inflict, their own could easily execute. 
Under a government so feeble, men assumed, as in a 
state of nature, the right of judging and redressing their 
own wrongs. And thus assassination, a crime of all 
others the most destructive to society, came not only 
to be allowed, but to be deemed honorable." In 
another passage he observes, that " mankind became 
thus habituated to blood, not only in times of war, but 
of peace ; and from this, as well as other causes, con- 
tracted an amazing ferocity of temper and of manners." 

VI. Second Cause of Diversity in Men's Moral Judg- 
ments. Difference in Speculative Opinions^ The second 
cause I mentioned of the apparent diversity among 
mankind in their moral judgments is the diversity in 
their speculative opinions. 

The manner in wilich this cause operates will appear 
obvious, if it be considered that nature, by the sugges- 
tions of our moral principles, only recommends to us 
particular ends, but leaves it to our reason to ascertain 
the most effectual means by which these ends are to be 
attained. Thus nature points out to us our own hap- 
piness, and also the happiness of our fellow-creatures. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 147 

as objects towards the attainment of which our best 
exertions ought to be directed; but she has left us to 
exercise our reason, both in ascertaining what the con- 
stituents of happiness are, and how they may be 
most completely secured. Hence, according to the 
different points of view in which these subjects of con- 
sideration may appear to different understandings, 
there must of necessity be a diversity of judgments 
with respect to the morality of the same actions. One 
man, for example, believes that the happiness of soci- 
ety is most effectually consulted by an implicit obedi- 
ence in all cases to the will of the civil magistrate. 
Another, that the mischiefs to be apprehended from 
resistance and insurrection in cases of urgent necessity 
are trifling when compared with those which may 
result to ourselves and our posterity from an establish- 
ed despotism. The former will of course be an advo- 
cate for the duty of passive obedience ; the latter for 
the right, and, in certain supposable cases, for the 
obligation of resistance. Both of these men, however, 
agree in the general principle, that it is our duty to 
promote to the utmost of our power the happiness 
of society; and they differ from each other only on a 
speculative question of expediency. 

In like manner, there is a wide diversity between 
the moral systems of ancient and modern times on 
the subject of suicide. Both, however, agree in this, 
that it is the duty of man to obey the will of his 
Creator, and to consult every intimation of it that his 
reason can discover, as the supreme law of his conduct. 
They differed only in their speculative doctrines concern- 
ing the interpretation of the will of God, as manifest- 
ed by the dispensations of his providence in the events 
of human life. The prejudices of the ancients on this 
subject were indeed founded in a very partial and 
erroneous view of circumstances (arising, however, not 
unnaturally, from the unsettled state of society in the 
ancient republics) ; but they only afford an additional 
instance of the numerous mistakes to which human 
reason is liable; not of a fluctuation in the judgments 



148 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

of mankind concerning the fundamental rales of mor- 
al duty.* 

VII. Third Cause of Diversity in Men's Moral Judg- 
ments. Different Systems of Behaviour.] The differ- 
ent moral import, too, of the same material action, un- 
der different systems of external behaviour, deserves par- 
ticular attention, in forming an estimate of the moral 
sentiments of different ages and nations. 

This difference is chiefly owing to two causes : — 
First, to the different conceptions of happiness and mis- 
ery, — of what is to be desired and shunned, — which 
men are led to form in different states of society. Sec- 
ondly, to the effect of accident, which, as it leads men 
to speak different languages in different countries, so it 
leads them to express the same dispositions of the 
heart by different external observances. 

1. Where the opinions of mankind vary concern- 
ing the external circumstances that constitute happi- 
ness, the external expressions of benevolence must vary 
of course. Thus, in the fact referred to by Locke con- 
cerning the Indians in the neighbourhood of Hudson's 
Bay, the wishes of the aged parent being different from 
what we are accustomed to observe in this part of the 
world, the marks of filial affection on the pai't of the 
child must vary also. " In some countries honor is 
associated with suffering, and it is reckoned a favor to 
be killed with circumstances of torture. Instances of 
this occur in the manners of some American nations, 
and in the pride which an Indian matron feels when 
placed on the funeral pile of her deceased husband." f 
In such cases an action may have to us all the external 
marks of extreme cruelty, while it proceeds from a 
disposition generous and affectionate. 

* See Lieber's Political Ethics, Book I. Sect, xviii., where the conduct of 
the Thugs of India — a fanatical sect pursuing murder as a trade, and un- 
der the supposed sanction of religion — is reconciled with the moral con- 
stitution of human nature. — Ed. 

t Ferguson's Moral and Political Science, Part II. Chap. II. Sect. iv. 
[For facts in confirmation of this doctrine, see Historical Illustrations oj 
the Passions, particularly Vol I. Chap. III. and IV.] 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 149 

2. A difference in the moral import of the same ac- 
tion often arises from the same accidental causes which 
lead men, in different parts of the globe, to express the 
same ideas by different arbitrary signs. 

What happens in the trifling forms and ceremonies 
of behaviour may serve to illustrate the operation of 
the same causes on more important occasions. " In 
the general principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, 
we may venture to assert that the opinions of all na- 
tions are agreed ; but in the expression of this disposi- 
tion, we meet with endless varieties. In Europe, it is 
the form of respect to uncover the head; in Japan, the 
corresponding form is said to be to uncover the foot by 
dropping the slipper.* Persons unacquainted with any 
language but their own are apt to think the words they 
use natural and fixed expressions of things ; while the 
words of a different language they consider as mere 
jargon, or the result of caprice. In the same manner, 
forms of behaviour different from their own appear of- 
fensive and irrational, or a perverse substitution of ab- 
surd for reasonable manners. 

" Among the varieties of this sort, we find actions, 
gestures, and forms of expression, in their own nature 
indifferent, entered into the code of civil or religious 
duties, and enforced under the strongest sanctions of 
public censure or esteem ; or under the strongest de- 
nunciations of the Divine indignation or favor. 

" Numberless ceremonies and observances in the ritu- 
al of different sects are to be accounted for on the same 
principles which produce the diversity of names or 
signs for the same thing in the vocabulary of different 
languages. Thus, the generality of Christians when 
they pray take off their hats; the Jews when they pray 
put them on. Such acts, how strongly soever they 
may affect the imaginations of the multitude, may just- 



* "Even here," Sir Joshua Reynolds ingeniously remarks, "we may 
perhaps ohserve a general idea running through all the varieties; to wit, 
the general idea of' making the body less in token of respect, whether by 
bowing the body, kneeling, prostration, pulling off the upper part of thf 
■TOSS, or throwing aside the lower." 

13* 



150 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

ly be considered as part of the arbitrary language of 
particular countries ; implying no diversity whatever in 
the ideas or feelings of those among whom they are 
established." * 

As a further proof of the impossibility of judging of 
the general character of a people from their opinions 
concerning the morality of particular actions, we may 
observe, that, in some of the writings of the ancient 
moralists, we meet with the most refined and sublime 
precepts blended promiscuously with dissuasives from 
the most shocking and detestable crimes ; in one sen- 
tence, perhaps, a precept which may be read with ad- 
vantage by the most enlightened of the present times ; 
and in the next, a dissuasive from some crime which 
no one now could be supposed to perpetrate who had 
not arrived at the last stage of depravity. 

I have dwelt very long on this subject, because, if it 
be painful to be staggered in our belief of the immuta- 
bility of moral distinctions by the first aspect of the 
history of mankind, it affords a tenfold pleasure to 
those who feel themselves interested in the cause of 
morality, when they find, on an accurate examination, 
that those facts on which skeptics have laid the great- 
est stress are not only consistent with the moral consti- 
tution of man, but result necessarily from this constitu- 
tion, diversified in its effects according to the different 
circumstances in which the individual is situated. To 
trace in this manner the essential principles of the hu- 
man frame, amidst the various disguises it borrows 
from accidental causes, is one of the most interesting 
employments of philosophical curiosity ; nor is there, 
perhaps, a more satisfactory gratification to a liberal 
mind, than when it recognizes, under the superstition, 
the ignorance, and the loathsome sensualities of sav- 
age life, the kindred features of humanity, and the in* 
delible vestiges of that Divine image after which man 
was originally formed. 

VIII. Locke's Connection with this' Controversy?^ The 

* See Ferguson's Moral and Political Science, Part II. Chap. II. Sect, jv 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 151 

doctrines en this subject which I have hitherto been en- 
deavouring to refute, (how erroneous soever in their 
principles, and dangerous in their consequences,) have 
been maintained by some writers who certainly were 
not unfriendly in their views to the interests of virtue 
and of mankind. In proof of this, I need only men- 
tion the name of Mr. Locke, who, in the course of a 
long and honorable life, distinguished himself no less 
by the exemplary worth of his private character; and 
by his ardent zeal for civil and religious liberty, thau 
by the depth and originality of his philosophical specu- 
lations. His errors, however, ought not, on these ac- 
counts, to be treated with reverence; but, on the con- 
trary, they require a more careful and severe examination, 
in consequence of the high authority they derive from 
his genius and his virtues. And accordingly, I have 
enlarged on such of his opinions as seemed to me fa- 
vorable to skeptical views concerning the foundation 
of morals, at much greater length than the ingenuity or 
plausibility of his reasonings in support of them may 
appear to some to have merited. 

To these opinions of Locke Lord Shaftesbury has 
alluded, in various parts of his works, with a good deal 
of indignation; and particularly in the following pas- 
sage of his Advice to an Author. " One would imag- 
ine that our philosophical writers, who pretend to treat 
of morals, should far outdo our poets in recommending 
virtue, and representing what is fair and amiable in hu- 
man actions. One would imagine, that, if they turned 
their eyes towards remote countries, (of which they af- 
fect so much to speak,) they should search for that sim- 
plicity of manners, and innocence of behaviour, which 
has been often known among mere savages, ere they 
were corrupted by our commerce, and, by sad exumple, 
instructed in all kinds of treachery and inhumanity. It 
would be of advantage to us to hear the cause of this 
strange corruption in ourselves, and be made to consid- 
er of our deviation from nature, and from that just 
purity of manners which might be expected, especially 
from 9 people so assisted and enlightened by religion 



152 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

For who would not naturally expect more justice, fidel- 
ity, temperance, and honesty from Christians than from 
Mahometans or mere Pagans ? But so far are our mod- 
ern moralists from condemning any unnatural vices or 
corrupt manners, whether in our own or foreign climates, 
that they would have vice itself appear as natural as 
virtue; and, from the worst examples, would represent 
to us, 'that all actions are naturally indifferent; that 
they have no note or character of good or ill in them- 
selves, but are distinguished by mere fashion, law, or 
arbitrary decree.' Wonderful philosophy ! raised from 
the dregs of an illiterate, mean kind, which was ever 
despised among the great ancients, and rejected by all 
men of action or sound erudition ; but, in these ages, 
imperfectly copied from the original, and, with much 
disadvantage, imitated and assumed in common, both 
by devout and indevout attempters in the moral kind. " * 

Besides these incidental remarks on Locke, which 
occur in different parts of Shaftesbury's writings, there 
is a letter of his addressed to a student at the universi- 
ty, which relates almost entirely to the opinion we have 
been considering, and contains some excellent observa- 
tions on the subject. 

In this letter Lord Shaftesbury observes, that " all 
those called free writers now-a-days have espoused 
those principles which Mr. Hobbes set afoot in this last 
age." " Mr. Locke," he continues, " as much as I 
honor him on account of other writings (viz. on gov- 
ernment, policy, trade, coin, education, toleration, &c), 
and as well as I knew him, and can answer for his sin- 
cerity, as a most zealous Christian and believer, did 
however go in the selfsame track, and is followed by 
the Tindals, and all the other ingenious free authors of 
our time. 

" It was Mr. Locke that struck the home blow ; for 
Mr. Hobbes's character and base, slavish principles of 
government took off the poison of his philosophy. It 
was Mr. Locke that struck at all fundamentals, threw 

* Part III. Sect. iii. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 153 

all order and virtue out of the world, and made the 
very ideas of these (which are the same with those of 
God) unnatural, and without foundation in our minds 
Innate is a word he poorly plays upon ; the right word, 
though less used, is connatural. For what has birth, 
or progress of the foetus oat of the womb, to do in this 
case? The question is not about the time the ideas 
entered, or the moment that one body came out of the 
other, but whether the constitution of man be such, 
that, being adult and grown up, at such or such a time, 
sooner or later, (no matter when,) the idea and sense 
of order, administration, and a God will not infallibly, 
inevitably, necessarily, spring up in him ? " * 

In this last remark, Lord Shaftesbury appears to me 
to place the question concerning innate ideas upon the 
right and only philosophical footing, and to afford a 
key to all the confusion which runs through Locke's 
argument on the subject. The observations which fol- 
low are not less just and valuable ; but I must not in- 
dulge myself in any further extracts at present.f 

These passages of Shaftesbury, in some of which 
the warmth of his temper has betrayed him into ex- 
pressions disrespectful to Locke, have drawn on him a 
number of very severe animadversions, particularly 
from Warburton, in the preface to his Divine Legation 

* Letters to a Student at the University, Let. VIII. 

t Notwithstanding, however, the countenance which Locke's reasonings 
against innate practical principles have the appearance of giving to the 
philosophy of Hobbes, I have not a doubt that the difference of opinion 
between him and Lord Shaftesbury on this point was almost entirely ver- 
bal. Of this I have elsewhere produced ample proofs; but the following 
passage will suffice for my present purpose. "I would not be mistaken, as 
if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there were none but positive 
laws. There is a great deal of difference between an innate law and a kno 
of nature, between something imprinted on our minds in their very original, 
and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, 
by the use and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they 
equally forsake the truth, who, running into the contrary extremes, either 
affirm an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of 
nature, without the help of a positive revelation." — Locke's Essay concern- 
inn Human Understanding, Book I. Chap. III. § 13. 

[See, however, Cousin, Histoire de la PMlosophiedu XVLTP Sificle, Tom. 
II. Levon XX e . Or Professor Henry's translation of the same, Elements oj 
Psychology, Chap. V.] 



154 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

of Moses. But although Shaftesbury's personal allu- 
sions to Locke cannot be justified, some allowance 
ought to be made for the indignation of a generous 
mind at a doctrine which (however well meant by the 
proposer) strikes at the very root of morality. In this 
instance, too, it is not improbable that the discussion of 
the general argument may have added to the asperity 
of his style, by reviving the memory of the private con- 
troversies which, it is presumable, had formerly been 
carried on between Locke and him on this important 
subject. It is well known that Shaftesbury was Locke's 
pupil, and also that their tempers and literary tastes 
were not suitable to each other. In this it is common- 
ly supposed that the former was to blame ; but, I pre- 
sume, not wholly. Dr. Warton tells us, that Mr. Locke 
affected to despise poetry, and that he depreciated the 
ancients ; " which circumstance," he adds, " as I am in- 
formed from undoubted authority, was the subject of 
perpetual discontent and dispute between him and his 
pupil, Lord Shaftesbury." * That Shaftesbury was not 
insensible to Locke's real merits appears sufficiently 
from a passage in the first of his Letters to a Student 
at the University. " However, I am not sorry that I 
lent you Locke's Essay, a book that may as well quali- 
fy men for business and the world as for the sciences 
and the university. No one has done more towards 
the recalling of philosophy from barbarity into use and 
practice of the world, and into the company of the 
better and politer sort, who might well be ashamed 
of it in its other dress. No one has opened a better 
and clearer way to reasoning." 

Section IV. 

LICENTIOUS SYSTEMS OF MORALS. 

I. Character of the Systems so named.] The theo- 
ries concerning the origin of our moral ideas which we 

* Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, Sect. XII. 



LICENTIOUS SYSTEMS. 155 

are now to consider, although they agree in. many re- 
spects with that of Locke and his followers, have yet 
proceeded from very different views and intentions. 
They also involve some principles that are peculiar to 
themselves, and which, therefore, render a separate ex- 
amination of them necessary for the complete illustra- 
tion of this fundamental article of ethics. They have 
been distinguished by Mr. Smith by the name of the 
Licentious Systems of Morals, — a name which certain- 
ly cannot be censured as too harsh, when applied to 
those which maintain that the motives of all men are 
fundamentally the same, and that what we commonly 
call virtue is mere hypocrisy. 

Among the licentious moralists of modern times, the 
most celebrated are the Due de la Rochefoucauld, au- 
thor of the Maxims and Moral Reflections, and Dr. 
Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees. By the 
generality of our English philosophers, these two writ- 
ers are commonly coupled together as advocates for 
the same system, although their views and their char- 
acters were certainly extremely different. In the first 
editions of Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
he speaks of a licentious doctrine concerning morality, 
which, he says, " was first sketched by the delicate pen- 
cil of the Due de la Rochefoucauld, and was after- 
wards enforced by the coarse but powerful eloquence 
of Dr. Mandeville." In the last edition of that work 
the name of La Rochefoucauld is omitted, from Mr. 
Smith's deliberate conviction that it was unjust to his 
memory to class him with an author whose writings 
tend directly to confound all our ideas of moral distinc- 
tions. On this point I speak from personal knowledge, 
having been requested by Mr. Smith, when I happened 
to be at Paris some years before his death, to express 
to the late excellent and unfortunate Due de la Roche- 
foucauld his sincere regret for having introduced the 
name of his ancestor and that of Dr. Mandeville in the 
same sentence. 

II. La PwchcfoucaukV s Life and Personal Charac- 



156 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

ter.] The Dae de la Rochefoucauld, author of Hie 
Maxims, was born in 1613, and died in 1680. The 
early part of his education was neglected; but the dis- 
advantages he labored under in consequence of this 
circumstance he in a great measure overcame by the 
force of his own talents. According to Madame de 
Maintenon, who knew him well, " he was possessed of 
a countenance prepossessing and interesting; of man- 
ners graceful and dignified ; of much genius, and little 
acquired knowledge." The same excellent judge adds 
of him, that " he was intriguing, accommodating, and 
cautious ; but that she had never known a friend more 
firm, more open, or whose counsels were of greater val- 
ue. He loved raillery ; and used to say, that personal 
bravery appeared to him nothing better than folly; and 
yet he himself was brave to an extreme. He preserved 
to the last the vivacity of his mind, which was always 
agreeable, though naturally serious." 

In the share which he took in the political transac- 
tions of his times, he discovered a facility to engage in 
intrigues, without much steadiness in the pursuit of his 
object. This, at least, is a remark made on him by the 
Cardinal de Retz, who, in a portrait of him drawn with 
a masterly, though somewhat prejudiced hand, ascribes 
the apparent inconsistencies of his conduct to a nat- 
ural want of resolution. A later writer,* more favorable 
to his memory, has attempted to account for them, 
with much plausibility, by that superiority of penetra- 
tion, and that rigid integrity, which all his contempora- 
ries allow to have been distinguishing features in his 
character; and which, though not sufficient to keep 
him wholly disengaged from intrigues in a court where 
every thing was put in motion by the spirit of party, 
rendered him soon disgusted with the pretended patri- 
otism and the selfish politics of those with whom he 
acted. Accordingly, although he was induced by the 
force of early connections, and a natural facility of 
temper, to involve himself during a part of his life in 

* M. Suard 3 in his edition of the M&rimes, which appeared in 1778. 



LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 157 

public affairs, and more particularly, to become a tool 
of the Duchess of Longuevilie in the cabals of the 
Fronde, his own taste seems to have attached him to a 
more private scene, where he could enjoy in freedom 
the society and friendship of a few chosen companions. 
Towards the end of his life he spent much of his time 
at the house of Madame de la Fayette, which appears, 
from the letters of her friend, Madame de Sevigne, to 
have been, at that period, the resort of all persons dis- 
tinguished for wit and refinement. It was in the midst 
of this chosen society that he composed his Memoirs 
of the Regency of Anne of Austria, and also his Moral 
Reflections and Maxims. 

III. Influence of his Writings.'] Of these two works, 
the former is written with much elegance, and with a 
great appearance of sincerity ; but the events which it 
records are uninteresting in the present age. Bayle, in 
his Dictionary, gives it the preference to the Commenta- 
ries of Caesar; but the judgment of the public has 
not been equally favorable. " The Memoirs of the Due 
de la Rochefoucauld," says Voltaire, in his account of 
the writers of the age of Louis XIV., "are read; but 
every one knows his Maxims by heart." In fact, it is 
almost entirely by these maxims (which, as Montesquieu 
observes, " have become the proverbs of men of wit ") 
that the name of La Rochefoucauld is known ; and it 
must be confessed that few performances have acquired 
to their authors a higher or more general reputation. 
" One of the works," says Voltaire, " which contributed 
most to form the taste of the nation to a justness and 
precision of thought and expression, was the small col- 
lection of maxims by Francis, Due de la Rochefou- 
cauld. Although there is but one idea in the book, 
that self-love is the spring of all our actions, yet this 
idea is presented in so great a variety of forms as to 
be always amusing. When it first appeared, it was 
read with avidity ; and it contributed, more than any 
other performance since the revival of letters, to accus- 
tom writers to indulge themselves in an originality oi 



158 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

thought, and to improve the vivacity, precision, and 
delicacy of French composition." * 

That the tendency of these maxims is, upon the 
whole, unfavorable to morality, and that they always 
leave a disagreeable impression on the mind, must, I 
think, be granted. f At the same time, it may be fairly 
questioned if the motives of the author have in gen- 
eral been well understood, either by his admirers or by 
his opponents. In affirming that self-love is the spring 
of all our actions, there is no good reason for suppos- 
ing that he meant to deny the reality of moral distinc- 
tions as a philosophical truth, — a supposition quite 
inconsistent with his own fine and deep remark, that 
hypocrisy is itself a homage which vice renders to virtue. 
He states it merely as a proposition, which, in the 
course of his experience as a man of the world, he had 
found very generally verified in the higher classes of 
society, and which he was induced to announce, with- 
out any qualification or restriction, in order to give 
more force and poignancy to his satire. In adopting 
this mode of writing, he has unconsciously conformed 
himself, like many other French authors, who have 
since followed his example, J to a suggestion which 



* Siecle de Louis XIV., Chap. XXXII. 

t Mr. Spence, in his Anecdotes of Men and Books, ascribes to Pope 3 
remark on La Rochefoucauld which does no small honor to the poet's 
shrewdness and knowledge of human nature. I quote it in Spence's 
words. " As L'Esprit, La Rochefoucauld, and that sort of people, prove 
that all virtues are disguised vices, I would engage to prove all vices to 
be disguised virtues. Neither, indeed, is true; but this would be a more 
agreeable subject, and would overturn their whole scheme." — p. 11. 

J Thus it has often been said by French writers, that " no man is a hero 
to his valet de chambre"; and the maxim, when properly understood, has 
some foundation in truth. It probably was meant by its original author to 
refer only to those petty circumstances of temper and behaviour which, 
without affecting the essentials of character, have a tendency to diminish, 
on a near approach, the theati'ical effect of great men. It has, however, 
been frequently quoted as implying that there are none whose virtues will 
bear a close examination; in which acceptation, it is not more injurious to 
human nature than it is contrary to fact. How much more profound, as 
well as more pleasing, is the remark of Plutarch! "Real virtue is most 
loved where it is most nearly seen, and no respect which it commands 
from strangers can equal the never-ceasing admiration it excites in the 
daily intercourse of domestic life." — Yit. Per talis. It is indeed true? that 



LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 159 

Aristotle has stated with admirable depth and acute- 
ness in his Rhetoric. " Sentences or apothegms lend 
much aid to eloquence. One reason of this is, that 
they flatter the pride of the hearers, who are de 
lighted when the speaker, making use of general lan- 
guage, touches upon opinions which they had before 
known to be true in part. Thus, a person who had 
the misfortune to live in a bad neighbourhood, or to 
have worthless children, would easily assent to the 
speaker who should affirm that nothing is more vexa- 
tious than to have any neighbours; nothing more irra- 
tional than to bring children into the world."* This 
observation of Aristotle, while it goes far to account 
for the imposing and dazzling effect of these rhetorical 
exaggerations, ought to guard us against the common 
and popular error of mistaking them for the serious 
and profound generalizations of science. As for La 
Rochefoucauld, we know, from the best authorities, 
that in private life he was a conspicuous example of 
all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny 
the existence ; and that he exhibited, in this respect, a 
striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has pre- 
sumed to censure him for his want of faith in the real- 
ity of virtue. 

In reading La Rochefoucauld, it should never be for- 
gotten that it was within the vortex of a court he en- 
joyed his chief opportunities of studying the world, 
and that the narrow and exclusive circle in which he 
moved was not likely to afford him the most favorable 
specimens of human nature in general. Of the court 
of Louis XIV. in particular, we are told by a very nice 
and reflecting observer (Madame de la Fayette), that 

some men, who are admired by the world, appear to most advantage when 
viewed at a distance; but, on the other hand, may it not be contended 
that many who are objects of general odium would be found, if examined 
more nearly, not to be destitute of estimable and amiable qualities ? May 
we not even go further, and assert that the very worst of men have a mix- 
ture of good in their composition, and express a doubt whether human 
nature would gain or lose upon a thorough acquaintance with the conduct 
and motives of individuals ? 
* Lib. II. Cap. XXII. 



160 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

" ambition and gallantry were the soul, actuating alike 
both men and women. So many contending interests; 
so many different cabals, were constantly at work, 
and in all of those women bore so important a part, 
that love was always mingled with business, and 
business with love. Nobody was tranquil or indif- 
ferent. Every one studied to advance himself by 
pleasing, serving, or ruining others. Idleness and 
languor were unknown, and nothing was thought of 
but intrigues or pleasures." 

In the passage already quoted from Voltaire, he 
takes notice of the effect of La Rochefoucauld's max- 
ims in improving the style of French composition. 
We may add to this remark, that their effect has not 
been less sensible in vitiating the tone and character of 
French philosophy, by bringing into vogue those false- 
and degrading representations of human nature and 
of human life which have prevailed in that country 
more or less for a century past. Mr. Addison, in one 
of the papers of the Taller, expresses his indignation 
at this general bias among the French writers of his 
age. " It is impossible," he observes, " to read a 
passage in Plato, or Tully, or a thousand other ancient 
moralists, without being a greater and better man for 
it. On the contrary, I could never read any of our 
modish French authors, or those of our own country 
who are the imitators and admirers of that nation, 
without being for some time out of humor with my- 
self, and at every thing about me. Their business is to 
depreciate human nature, and to consider it under the 
worst appearances ; they give mean interpretations and 
base motives to the worthiest of actions. In short, 
they endeavour to make no distinction between man 
and man, or between the species of man and that of 
the brutes." 

IV. MandevilW s Writings and Moral System.] From 
the form in which La Rochefoucauld's maxims are pub- 
lished, it is impossible to attempt a particular examina- 
tion of them ; nor, indeed, do I apprehend that such 



MANDEVILLE. 161 

an examination is necessary for any of the purposes 
which I have at present in view. So far as their ten' 
dency is unfavorable to the reality of moral distinctions, 
it is the same with that of Mandeville's system; and 
therefore the strictures I am now to offer on the latter 
writer may be applied with equal truth to the general 
conclusions which some have chosen to draw T from the 
satirical observations of the former. 

Dr. Mandeville was born in Holland, where he re- 
ceived his education both in medicine and in philosopny. 
He made his first appearance in England about the be- 
ginning of the last century, and soon attracted very 
general attention by the vivacity and licentiousness of 
his publications. 

The work by which he is best known is a poem, 
first printed in 17.14, with the title of The Grumbling 1 
Hive, or Knaves turned Honest; upon which he after- 
wards wrote Remarks, and published the whole at 
London in 1723, having for its title The Fable of the 
Bees : or Private Vices, Public Benefits. This book 
was presented by the grand jury of Middlesex the 
same year, and was severely animadverted on soon 
after by some very eminent writers, particularly by Dr. 
Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, and by Dr. Hutcheson of 
Glasgow in his various treatises on ethical subjects. 

To the Remarks on the Fable of the Bees, the au- 
thor has prefixed An Inquiry into the Origin of Moral 
Virtue; and it is to this inquiry that I propose to con- 
fine myself chiefly in the following strictures, as it 
exhibits his peculiar opinions concerning the principles 
of morals in a more systematical form than any of 
his other writings. In the course of the observations 
which I have to offer with respect to it, I shall perhaps 
be led to repeat one or two remarks which have been 
already suggested by the doctrines of Locke. But, for 
this repetition, 1 hope that the importance of the sub- 
ject will be a sufficient apology. 

The great object of Mandeville's inquiry into the 
origin of moral virtue is to show that all our moral 
sentiments are derived from education, and are the 
14* 



162 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

workmanship of politicians and lawgivers. " These." 
says he, " observing how selfish an animal man is, and 
how impossible, in consequence, it would be to retain 
numbers together in the same society without govern- 
ment, endeavoured to give his selfish principles a direc- 
tion useful to the public. For this purpose they have 
labored in all ages to convince him that it is better to 
restrain than to indulge his appetites, and to consult 
the public interest than his own. The engine they 
employed in working upon him was flattery, which 
they addressed to vanity, one of the strongest principles 
of our nature. They contrasted man with the loiver 
animals, and magnified the advantages he possesses 
over them. The human race they divided into two 
classes; the mean and contemptible, who, after the 
example of the brutes, gratify every animal propensity; 
and the generous and high-spirited, who, disdaining 
these low gratifications, bend their study to cultivate 
the nobler principles of our nature, and wage a con- 
tinual war with themselves to promote the happiness 
of others. In the case of men possessed of an extraor- 
dinary degree of pride and resolution, these representa- 
tions of politicians and moralists were able to effec- 
tuate a complete conquest of their natural appetites, 
and a complete contempt of their own visible interests ; 
and even the feeble-minded and abject would be un- 
willing to rank themselves in the class to which they 
really belonged, and would strive to conceal their im- 
perfections from the world, by their forwardness to 
swell the cry in praise of self-denial and of public 
spirit. Such," says Mandeville, " was, or at least 
might have been, the manner after which savage man 
was broke; and what we call the moral virtues are 
merely the political offspring- which flatter?/ begot upon 
■pride." 

I shall not insist on the absurdity of supposing that 
government is an invention of political wisdom, and 
not the natural result of man's constitution, and of the 
circumstances in which he is placed. This, howevel 
improbable, is one of the least absurdities of Man 



MANDEVILLE. 16^ 

de vine's system. Its capital defect consists in supposing 
that the origin of our moral virtues may be accounted 
for from the power of education ; a fundamental error, 
which is common to the system of Mandeville and that 
of Locke as commonly understood by his followers, 
and which I had formerly occasion to notice and refute. 
I shall not, therefore, enlarge upon it at present, but 
shall confine myself to those parts of Mandeville's 
philosophy which are peculiar to himself. 

V. His Erroneous Notions respecting 1 Vanity and 
Pride.] It appears from the passage just quoted, that 
the engine which Mandeville supposes politicians to 
employ for the purpose of creating the artificial distinc- 
tion between virtue and vice is vanity or pride, which 
two words he uses as synonymous. He employs them, 
likewise, in a much more extensive sense than their 
common acceptation authorizes ; to denote, not only an 
overweening conceit of our own character and attain- 
ments, or a weak and childish passion for the admira- 
tion of others, but that reasonable desire for the esteem 
of our fellow-creatures, which, so far from being a 
weakness, is a laudable and respectable principle. 

The desire of esteem and the dread of contempt are 
undoubtedly among the strongest principles of our 
nature ; but in good minds they are only subsidiary to 
the desire of excellence, nay, they cannot be effectually 
gratified if they are the first springs of our actions. To 
be pleased with the applause of others, it is not suf- 
ficient to possess the appearance of good qualities ;• we 
must possess the reality. A man of sense and delicacy 
is never more mortified than when he receives praise 
for qualities which he knows do not belong to him ; 
and he is comforted, under the mistaken censures of 
the world, by the consciousness he does not deserve 
them. A desire of applause may, without detracting 
from our merit, mingle itself with the more worthy 
motives of our conduct; but if it is the sole motive, 
the attainment of the object will never communicate 
a lasting satisfaction. 



164 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

"Falsus honor jurat, ct mendax infamia tevrct, 
Quern, nisi mcndosum ct mendacem'? "* 

Vanity, in propriety of speech, denotes a weakness 
arising from a perversion of the desire of esteem. A 
man is vain who values himself on what is unworthy 
of regard, as the external distinctions of equipage 01 
dress. He, too, is vain who wishes to pass in the 
world for what he really is not, and boasts of qualities 
which he does not possess. We also give the name 
of vanity to that weakness which disposes a man to 
be pleased with flattery, and which leads him, not only 
to desire the esteem of others, but to place his happi- 
ness in public expressions of it. In every case, vanity 
denotes a weakness which is carefully to be distin- 
guished from the love of true glory. 

Mandeville uses the word to express every sentiment 
of regard that we feel for the good opinion of others ; 
and, wherever this regard can be supposed to have had 
any influence on our conduct, he concludes that vanity 
was our principle of action. 

From these observations, added to those formerly 
made on Locke, it follows, in the first place, that the 
whole of our moral sentiments cannot be accounted for 
from education. Secondly, that, by confounding to- 
gether vanity, and a reasonable regard to the esteem of 
our fellow-creatures, Mandeville has expressed the fun- 
damental proposition of his system in terms so vague 
and ambiguous as renders it impossible to form a 
distinct conception of his meaning. And, thirdly, that 
even this reasonable and laudable desire of esteem 
cannot be effectually gratified, if it be the sole prin- 
ciple of our conduct; and therefore cannot be the only 
source of our moral virtues. 

From the principle of vanity, Mandeville endeavours 
to account for all the instances of self-denial that have 
occurred in the world. But he is not satisfied with ex« 



Hor., Ep. XVI. 39. 

"False praise can charm, unreal shame control, 
Whom, but a vicious or a sickly soul 1 " 



MANDEVILLE. 165 

plaining away in this manner the reality of moral 
distinctions. He endeavours to show that human life 
is nothing but a scene of hypocrisy, and that there is 
really little or none of that self-denial to be found that 
some men lay claim to. In his theory of moral virtue 
he seems to allow that education may not only teach 
a man to check his appetites in order to procure the 
esteem of others, but that it may teach him to con- 
sider such a conquest over the lower principles of his 
nature as noble in itself, and as elevating him still 
farther than nature had done above the level of the 
brutes. " Those men," says he, " who have labored to 
establish societies endeavoured, in the first place, to 
insinuate themselves into the hearts of men by flattery, 
extolling the excellences of our nature above other ani- 
mals. They next began to instruct them in the notions 
of honor and shame, representing the one as the worst 
of all evils, and the other as the highest good to which 
mortals could aspire; — which being done, they laid 
before them how unbecoming it was the dignity of 
such sublime creatures to be solicitous about gratifying 
those appetites which they had in common with the 
brutes, and at the same time unmindful of those higher 
qualities that gave them the preeminence over all 
visible beings. They, indeed, confessed that these 
impulses of nature were very pressing; that it was 
troublesome to resist, and very difficult wholly to subdue 
them. But this they only used as an argument to de- 
monstrate how glorious the conquest of them was on 
the one hand, and how scandalous on the other not to 
attempt it." 

These arguments, it is evident, are addressed to 
pride rather than to vanity ; and it is worthy of remark, 
that, though Mandeville never states the distinction 
between these two words, but, on the contrary, affects 
to consider them as synonymous, he plainly was 
aware of the import of both, and sometimes uses the 
one, and sometimes the other, as best suits his purpose. 
Thus, in the following passage, if the word vanity were 
substituted instead of pride, the impropriety could not 



166 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

escape the most careless reader. " Such men as, from 
no other motive but their love of goodness, perform a 
worthy action in silence, have, I confess, acquired more 
refined notions of virtue than those I have hitherto 
spoke of, yet even in these (with whom the world has 
never yet swarmed) we may discover no small symp- 
toms of pride ; and the humblest man alive must con- 
fess that the reward of a virtuous action, which is the 
satisfaction that ensues upon it, consists in a certain 
pleasure he procures to himself, by contemplating on 
his own worth ; which pleasure, together with the 
occasion of it, are as certain signs of pride as looking 
pale and trembling at any imminent danger are the 
symptoms of fear." 

From these passages, however, it is abundantly 
clear, that, in his theory of virtue, Mandeville admits 
the possibility of self-denial being exercised merely for 
the private gratification of the pride of the individual, 
without any regard to the opinions of other men. But 
in his commentary on the Fable of the Bees, he goes 
much farther, and attempts to show that there is really 
no self-denial in the world, and that what we call a 
conquest is only a concealed indulgence of our passions. 
To establish this point, he avails himself of the am- 
biguity of language. The passion of sex he, in every 
case, calls lust ; every thing which exceeds what is 
necessary for the support of life he calls luxury ; and 
thus confounding the innocent and reasonable gratifi- 
cations of our passions with their vicious excesses, he 
pretends to show that there is really no virtue among 
men. " There are some of our passions," says Mr. 
Smith, "which have no other names except those 
which mark the disagreeable and offensive degree. 
The spectator is more apt to take notice of them in 
this degree than in any other. When they shock his 
own sentiments, when they give him some sort of 
antipathy and uneasiness, he is necessarily obliged to 
attend to them, and is from thence naturally led to 
give them a name. When they fall in with the nat- 
ural state of his own mind, he is very apt to overlook 



MANDEVILLE. 167 

them altogether, and either gives them no name at all, or, 
if he gives them any, it is one which marks rather the 
subjection and restraint of the passion than the degree 
which it is still allowed to subsist in after it is so sub- 
jected and restrained. Thus, the common names of 
the love of pleasure and of the love of sex denote a 
vicious and offensive degree of those passions. The 
words temperance and chastity, on the other hand, seem 
to mark rather the restraint and subjection in which 
they are kept under, than the degree which they are 
still allowed to subsist in. When he can show, there- 
fore, that they still subsist in some degree, he imagines 
he has entirely demolished the reality of the virtues of 
temperance and chastity, and shown them to be mere 
impositions upon the inattention and simplicity of 
mankind. Those virtues, however, do not require an 
entire insensibility to the objects of the passions which 
they mean to govern. They only aim at restraining the 
violence of those passions so far as not to hurt the in- 
dividual, and neither to disturb nor offend society. 

" It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book to 
represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so 
in any degree, and in any direction. It is thus that he 
treats every thing as vanity which has any reference 
either to what are, or what ought to be, the sentiments 
of others; and it is by means of this sophistry that he 
establishes his favorite conclusion, that private vices are 
public benefits. If the love of magnificence, a taste 
for the elegant arts and improvements of human life, for 
whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage, 
for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to be 
regarded as luxury, sensuality, and ostentation, even in 
those whose situation allows, without any inconven- 
iency, the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that 
luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public benefits, 
since, without the qualities upon which he thinks proper 
to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refine- 
ment could never find employment, and must languish 
for want of encouragement. Some popular ascetic 
doctrines which had been current before his lime, and 



168 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

which placed virtue in the entire extirpation and an- 
nihilation of all our passions, were the real foundation 
of this licentious system. It was easy for Dr. Mande- 
ville to prove, first, that this entire conquest never ac- 
tually took place among men ; and, secondly, that, if it 
was to take place universally, it would be pernicious to 
society, by putting an end to all commerce and indus- 
try, and, in a manner, to the whole business of human 
Life. By the first of these propositions he seemed to 
prove that there was no real virtue, and that what pre- 
tended to be such was a mere cheat and imposition 
upon mankind ; and by the second, that private vices 
were public benefits, since without them no society 
could prosper or flourish." * 

VI. On the General Impression and Practical Ten- 
dency of such Speculations.] I shall not enter into a 
more particular examination of Mandeville's doctrines. 
I cannot, however, leave the subject without observing, 
that the impression which the author's writings produce 
on the mind affords a sufficient refutation of his princi- 
ples. It was considered by Cicero as a strong pre- 
sumption against the system of Epicurus, that "it 
breathed nothing generous or noble," nihil magnificum, 
nihil generosum sapit ; and the same presumption will 
be found to apply, with tenfold force, to that theory 
which has been now under our discussion. If there be 
no real distinction between virtue and vice, — if the 
account given by Mandeville of the constitution of our 
nature be a just one, — why do his reasonings render 
us dissatisfied with our own characters, or inspire us 
with a detestation and contempt for mankind ? Why 
do we turn with pleasure from the dark and uncomfort- 
able prospects which he presents to us, to the delight- 
ful and elevating views of human nature which are ex- 
hibited in those philosophical systems which he attempts 
to explode ? It will be said, perhaps, that all this arises 
from pride or vanity. When we read Mandeville, we 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. II. Chap. IV. 



MANDEVILLE. 1GJ) 

are ashamed of the species to which we belong ; while, 
on the contrary, our pride is gratified by those sublime 
but fallacious descriptions of disinterested virtue, with 
which the weakness or hypocrisy of some popular writ- 
ers has nattered the moral enthusiasm of the multi- 
tude. But if Mandeville's account of our nature be just, 
whence is it that we come to have an idea of one class 
of qualities as more excellent and meritorious than an- 
other? Why do we consider pride or vanity as a less 
worthy motive for our conduct than disinterested pa- 
triotism or friendship, or a determined adherence to 
what we believe to be our duty? Why does human 
nature appear to us less amiable in his writings than in 
the writings of Addison ? or whence the origin of those 
opposite sentiments which the very names of Addison 
and of Mandeville inspire? We shall admit the fact 
with respect to the actual depravity of man to be as he 
states it ; but does not the impression his system leaves 
on the mind demonstrate that we are at least formed 
with the love and admiration of moral excellence, and 
mat virtue was intended to be the law of our conduct? 
The question concerning the actual attainments of man 
must not be confounded with the question concerning 
the reality of moral distinctions. If Mandeville is suc- 
cessful in establishing his doctrine on the first of these 
points, the dissatisfaction his conclusions leave on the 
mind is sufficient to overturn his doctrine with respect 
to the latter. The remark of La Rochefoucauld, that 
M hypocrisy itself is a homage which vice renders to vir- 
tue," involves a satisfactory reply to all the arguments 
that have ever been drawn from the prevailing corrup- 
tion of mankind against the moral constitution of hu- 
man nature. 

It is the capital defect of this system to confound to- 
gether the two questions I have just stated, and to sub- 
stitute a satire on vice and folly instead of a philosoph- 
ical account of those moral principles which form an 
essential part of our frame. That there is a great deal 
of truth mixed with the sophistry it contains, lam ready 
to acknowledge ; and if the author's remarks had been 
15 



170 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

thrown into the form of satires, many of them might 
have been useful to the world, by the light they throw 
on human character, and by the assistance which indi- 
viduals may derive from them in examining their own 
motives of action. Some apology might have been 
made, in this case, for the colorings which the author's 
facts have borrowed from his imagination. The object 
of the satirist is to reform ; and for this purpose it may 
sometimes be of use to exaggerate the prevailing vices 
and follies of the time, in order to contrast more strong- 
ly what mankind are with what they might and ought 
to be. But the satirist who wishes well to his species, 
while he indulges his indignation against prevailing cor- 
ruptions, will recollect, that, if his censures are just, they 
presuppose the reality of moral distinctions ; and while 
he laments the depravity of the race, and chastises the 
follies and vices of individuals, he will reverence moral- 
ity as the Divine law, and those essential principles of 
the human frame which bear the manifest signature of 
the Divine workmanship. To attempt to depreciate 
these can never answer a good purpose. On the con- 
trary, it has a tendency to fill the minds of good men 
with a desponding skepticism, and to stifle every gener- 
ous and active exertion ; and if it does not actually in- 
crease the depravity of the world, it tends at least to 
strengthen the effrontery of vice, and to expose the wiser 
and better part of mankind to the impertinent raillery 
of fools and profligates.* 



* As the direct influence of the writings of La Rochefoucauld and Man- 
deville has passed away for the most part, I have taken the liberty slightly 
to abridge what was said of them in the text, in order to make room for 
some account of a more distinguished moralist of the selfish school, Jeremy 
Bcntham. What relates to Bentham himself is taken from Morell's Vie/a 
of Speculative Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, Chap. IV. ; what relates 
to his followers is taken from Mackintosh's Progress of Ethical Philonoplm 
Sect. VI. — Ed. 



BENTHAM. 17l 



Appendix to Chapter II. m 

BENTHAM AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 

T. Bcntham's Ethical Writings and Doctrines.] Jeremy 
Bentham was born in London, in the year 1748, and at 
a very early age became a graduate of the University , 
of Oxford. Whilst there, he directed his attention to 
the study of law and the cognate branch of ethics, and 
during the last year of his stay in that city became an 
ardent admirer and investigator of the principle of utili- 
ty, chiefly from reading Dr. Priestley's Essay upon Gov* 
ernment. In 1776 he published a Fragment on Govern- 
ment, and in 1789 appeared his grand work, entitled 
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. 
The moral system which Bentham advocated in this 
latter work, and which he expanded more and more 
during a long and laborious life, at length came forth, 
in the year 1834, in its most complete, and at the same 
time most popular form, as a posthumous production, 
edited by Dr. Bowring, under the title of Deontology ; 
or the Science of Morality. 

The principles advocated under the name of deontol- 
ogy may be easily explained. The whole system takes 
its rise from the consideration that man is capable of 
pleasures and pains, and that, from the calculation of 
these, all moral action proceeds. On this theory, good 
is a word synonymous with pleasure, evil synonymous 
with pain, and all happiness consists in the possession 
of the one, and the absence of the other. Give me, 
says the utilitarian teacher, give me the human sensi- 
bilities, — joy and grief, pain and pleasure, and I will 
create a moral world. Pleasure and pain, then, the 
basis of our moral nature, are to be estimated accord- 
ing to their magnitude and extent ; magnitude, referring 
to their intetisity and duration ; extent, depending on 
ihe number of persons who are affected by them. It 
is in the proper balancing of these, asserts Bentham, 
that all morality consists, and beyond this the words 
virtue and vice are emptiness and folly. 



172 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

Pleasure or pain, however, may arise from two 
sources ; it may arise from considerations affecting 
ourselves, or it may arise from the contemplation of 
others, the former being purely of a selfish nature, the 
latter being sympathetic. Hence originates a twofold 
division of virtue into prudence and effective benevo- 
lence, — both of them, however, alike having their 
ground in the pleasure we personally derive from their 
exercise. Prudence, again, is of two kinds, that which 
respects ourselves, which our author terms self-regard- 
ing prudence ; and that which respects others, which 
he terms extra-regarding prudence. Effective benevo- 
lence, also, is twofold, positive and negative; the busi- 
ness of the former being to augment pleasure by volun- 
tary exertion, that of the latter being to do the same 
by abstaining from action. Virtue, says Bentham, when 
separated from the pursuit of happiness, is absolutely 
nothing; and, accordingly, it is termed by him a ficti- 
tious entity. Inasmuch, also, as no one is supposed to 
have any motive for action different from the pursuit of 
pleasure or the avoidance of pain, we have the deonto- 
logical doctrine educed, that every motive is abstractedly 
good, and that evil has to do with nothing but our ac- 
tions or dispositions. In a word, we are to imagine, 
that man has originally no moral sentiment whatever, 
that he has no idea of one thing being right and another 
wrong, that all actions are to him in this respect abso- 
lutely alike, and that the conception of virtue, as well 
as the rules of morality, are all the product of experi- 
ence, teaching us what actions produce happiness, and 
what suffering. Such is the moral system which is 
aptly enough termed the greatest-happiness principle, 
and such the virtue which is correctly expressed as the 
art of maximizing our enjoyment. 

The style of the work from which I have made the 
above analysis is popular, witty, and somewhat amus- 
ing, but becomes at length tedious from repetition and 
tautology. It abounds in biting sarcasm against what 
is termed the dogmatism and " ipse-dixitism " of most 
other moralists ; but, what is remarkable, is itself at the 
same time one of the most striking instances of reitei* 



BENTHAM. 173 

ated assertion that is to be found among all the ethical 
writings of the present century.* 

* A few selections will best illustrate Bentham's light and irreverent 
tone. Thus in Fart I. Chap. II.: — "The talisman of arrogance, indo- 
lence, and ignorance is to be found in a single word, an authoritative im- 
posture, which in these pages it will be frequently necessary to unveil. It 
is the word ought, — ought or ought not, as circumstances may be. In de- 
ciding ' You ought to do this, — You ought not to do it,' is not every ques- v 
tion of morals set at rest 1 If the word be admissible at all, it ' ought' to be 
banished from the vocabulary of morals. There is another word which 
has a talismanic virtue, too, and which might be wielded to destroy many 
fatal and fallacious positions. ' You ought,' — ' You ought not,' says the 
dogmatist. ' Why ? ' retorts the inquirer, — ' Why ? ' To say ' You ought ' 
is easy in the extreme. To stand the searching penetration of a Why ' :•; 
not so easy. ' Why ought I ? ' ' Because you ought,' is the not unfre- 
quent reply : on which the Why ? comes back again with the added ad- 
vantage of having obtained a victory." A morality from the vocabulary 
of which the word " ought " is to be banished ! It is hardly necessary to 
observe that the whole force of Bentham's " Why % " depends on his de- 
termination to accept no answer which is not satisfactory according to his 
theory of utilitarianism, — of course palpably illogical, as it begs the whole 
question. 

Again in Chapter III. : — " The summum bonum, — the sovereign good, — 
what is it ? The philosopher's stone that converts all metals into gold, — 
the balm Hygeian that cures all manner of diseases. It is this thing, and 
that thing, and the other thing ; it is any thing but pleasure ; it is the Irish- 
man's apple-pie made of nothing but quinces." He then amuses himself 
by going a little more into detail with the various answers which philoso- 
phers and divines have made to the question proposed above. A single 
specimen will suffice. " But we are still at sea, and another set cry out, 
1 The habit of virtue ' ; the habit of virtue is the summum bonum : either 
this is the jewel itself, or the casket in which it is found. Lie all your life 
long in your bed with the rheumatism in your loins, the stone in your blad- 
der, and the gout in your feet: have but the habit of virtue, and you have 
the summum bonum. Much good may it do you.'''' 

Once more, in Chapter IV. : — " The moral sense, say some, prompts 
to generosity ; but does it determine what is generous ? It prompts to 
justice ; but docs it determine what is just? It can decide no controversy ; 
it can reconcile no difference. Introduce a modern partisan of the moral 
sense, and an ancient Greek, and ask each of them whether actions deemed 
blameless in ancient days, but respecting which opinions have now under- 
gone great change, ought to be tolerated in a community. l By no means,' 
says the modern ; ' as my moral sense abhors them, therefore they ought 
not.' ' But mine,' says the ancient, ' approves of them ; therefore they 
ought.' And there, if the modern keep his principles and his temper, the 
matter must end between them. Upon the ground of moral sense there is 
no going one jot further ; and the result is, that the actions in question are 
at once laudable and detestable. The modern, then, as probably he will 
keep neither his principles nor his temper, says to the ancient, ' Your 
moral sense is nothing to the purpose ; yours is corrupt, abominable, de- 
testable; all nations cry out against you.' 'No such thing,' replies the 
ancient ; 'and if they did, it would be nothing to the purpose j our businesi 

15* 



174 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

II. Objections to Bentham! s System.] In offering 
some remarks upon Bentham's philosophy, we must 
state distinctly, that we leave entirely out of the ques- 
tion his valuable labors in the department of jurispru- 
dence, and refer simply to the principles of his moral 
theory. And here we would caution every ethical stu- 
dent against imagining, that he will find all the origi- 
nality which is claimed for the deontologist by himself 
and his more ardent admirers. To speak of Bentham's 
" having found out the true psychological law of our 
nature, as Newton discovered that of the material uni- 
verse," is not only metaphysically false, but, even allow- 
ing its philosophical accuracy, is historically untrue. 
To say nothing of the Epicureans of ancient times, 
and more recently of Hobbes, we might point out 
many writers who have given far more than passing al- 
lusions to the very same doctrine as that for which 
Bentham is so highly extolled, although they may not 
have expanded it so fully, or applied it so extensively, 
as was done in the case before us.* The professed 
supporters of utility, again, such as Hume and Paley, 
proceeded virtually upon the very same principle; and 
even if we pass over these, yet still we might refer to 

was to inquire, not Avhat people thinks but what they ought to think.'' There- 
upon the modern kicks the ancient, or spits in his face ; or. if he is strong 
enough, throws him behind the fire. One can think of no other method, 
that is at once natural and consistent, of continuing the debute." 

It was Mr. Bentham's pleasure to persist in supposing that all his op- 
ponents, a few ascetics excepted, could be classed under the head of he- 
lievers in a moral sense. A large proportion of them, as we shall soon see, 
hold that the moral faculty pertains to the rational, and not to the sensitive, 
element in human nature. That the moral faculty should make mistakes, 
and afterwards correct them, does not disprove its existence as a natural 
endowment of man, or its legitimate authority. If it did, we might dis- 
prove the existence and authority of the knowing or cognitive faculty in 
the same way; for that also makes mistakes, and afterwards corrects them. 
Because we say that children and savages have a conscience, we do not 
mean that they have one in the same stage of development, and conse- 
quently we do not mean that its decisions are as clear, or as correct, as in 
the case of the properly educated. — Ed. 

* The only difference between Epicurus or Hobbes on the one side, and 
Bentham on the other, is, that the former drew their principles at once 
from human nature metaphysically considered, — while the latter gave no 
theory of man generally, but laid down his moral axioms as ultimate 
facts, 



BENTHAM. 175 

Gay's Preface to Archbishop King On the Origin of 
Evil, to the writings of Priestley, to the Political Justice, 
of Godwin, and to many of the French moralists, for il- 
lustrations of the very same theory, which Bentham only 
somewhat more perseveringly elaborated. The great- 
est-happiness principle is, in fact, utilitarianism in one 
of its many different phases ; and accordingly the ob- 
jections which we have already urged against that doc- 
trine apply with equal force to the one now before us. 
As the question, however, is of some importance, we 
shall specify a few other objections, which apply more 
directly to the utilitarian system, as held by the advo- 
cates of deontology ; and, 

1. There is in these writers a perpetual habit of con- 
founding the cause of virtuous action with the effect. 
We have it reiterated again and again, as an unan- 
swerable argument, that there must be a selfish pleas- 
ure experienced whenever we act on virtuous principles : 
for, if our action terminates in ourselves, it must arise 
from the prospect of our own happiness and advantage ; 
if, on the other hand, we act for the welfare of others, 
still, we are told, it is only for the satisfaction of our 
own impulses that we seek to benefit them. Now, 
that there is pleasure attached to moral action, whether 
it be self-seeking or extra-seeking, we readily admit ; 
but this is far from giving us a proof that such action 
springs from any anticipation of the pleasure ive hope 
to obtain. It is a pleasure to a strong man to exercise 
his limbs ; but this is no evidence that he cannot have 
any other motive, than this for exercising them. To a 
man devoted to business, it is a pleasure to be perpetu- 
ally absorbed in it ; but still his activity may have 
many other grounds of excitement besides that one. 
Prove as you may, that pleasure actually accompanies, 
and even that we expect it to accompany, the practice 
of every virtue, the point is still far from being settled 
that there is no other spring of virtuous action in exist- 
ence. The Deity, assuredly, may have given us a 
moral law, may have engraved it on our own minds, 
and placed it far beyond all the chances of human eal 



176 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

dilation ; and yet may have attached pleasure to the 
obedience of it as a mark of his approval, and as a re- 
ward for our fidelity. The mere fact, therefore, that we 
always look for happiness to accompany virtuous ac- 
tion, does not at all prove that happiness is the ground 
of its moral excellence. This is confirmed when we 
consider, 

2. That, upon investigating the moral phenonena of 
our minds, we find a class of affections which rise in 
their real worth just in proportion to their disinterested- 
ness. If personal pleasure were the ground of virtue, 
then every affection ought to be esteemed higher in the 
scale of morality in proportion as it tends more direct- 
ly to self as its object. Just the contrary is the case. 
The more our own individual interests are sacrificed in 
the pursuit of another's welfare, the higher rises the 
scale of virtue from which such conduct proceeds. If 
it be said that we sacrifice our own interests, because 
the pleasure of satisfying our benevolent feelings more 
than counterbalances the loss we sustain, we reply, 
that this only exhibits the vast strength of our purely 
disinterested affections, and affords no proof that, be- 
cause they give us pleasure in their exercise, therefore 
they must be selfish in their origin. Only show in one 
single instance that the direct end of an action is for 
the sake of another to the sacrifice of ourselves, and 
the fact that we have a moral satisfaction in its per- 
formance does not in the slightest degree shake its pure- 
ly unselfish character. 

3. That there are certain fixed relations between 
man's moral sensibilities and outward actions is a fact 
resting upon the evidence of our consciousness; and it 
is to these eternal relations that we direct our inquiries, 
when we seek to lay the groundwork of a moral phi- 
losophy. Very different, however, is our employment 
when we are merely engaged in calculating for our fu- 
ture happiness, with pleasures and pains as our ciphers. 
What is a pleasure to one man is often a pain to 
another ; that which offers to me satisfaction presents, 
perhaps, a prospect of naught but misery to you ; so 



BENTHAM. 177 

that moral relations, on this principle, must be as un- 
certain and variable as are the temperaments or idiosyn- 
crasies of individual minds. There needs to be, on the 
deontological system, a separate moral scale for every 
man ; nay, we ought all to revise our own moral prin- 
ciples every year or two, to see whether that which was 
a pleasure to us some time ago may not now have be* 
come an object of dissatisfaction : whether, therefore, 
that which was virtue has not now become vice. Our 
reason, we contend, in opposition to this, forces us to 
form certain primary and fundamental moral judgments, 
just as much as it necessitates the existence of our pri- 
mary beliefs with regard to the external world, or to the 
fact of an exertion of power in the production of every 
effect, or to the axioms which lie at the foundation of 
all mathematical reasoning. It is just as impossible 
for me practically to deny the obligation of justice, as 
it is to deny that the world exists, or that a whole is 
greater than a part. The one as well as the other rests 
upon the primary and undeniable facts of our own un- 
changeable consciousness, — facts which, though they 
may be disputed in theory, can never be denied in prac- 
tice. That a philosophical dreamer may run his head 
against the wall on the score of his idealism, we do not 
dispute ; nor do we doubt but that, in the case of mor- 
al obliquity, where the consequences of the folly are 
not so immediate, men may be found to reject the fun- 
damental axioms of moral obligation; but in the 
healthy understandings of the mass of mankind, the 
one judgment is just as plainly developed as the other. 
4. There is a secret pelitio principii at the very foun- 
dation of all utilitarian reasoning like that of Benthain. 
Every man, it is affirmed, ovght to seek the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number, as the fundamental 
principle of his actions in the world. But why ovght 
he to do so? On what ground can it be shown, that 
I am bound to seek the welfare of myself or my fel- 
low-creatures, if there is no such thing as moral obli- 
gation ? If it pleases me more to indict misery upon 
mankind, why am I not just as virtuous an agent iu 



178 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

doing so, as if I please myself by producing their hap- 
piness ? The greatest-happiness principle itself must, 
in fact, rest upon the pedestal of moral obligation, oth- 
erwise there is no means of enforcing it as the true 
principle of action, either in our social or our political 
relations. Take away that firm resting-place which is 
afforded by the notion of duty, and expressed in the 
word ought, and we may sink from one position down 
to another, without ever reaching a solid basis on which 
we may plant our feet, and lay the first stone of a mor- 
al superstructure. That this is really the case is half 
acknowledged by the followers of Bentham, who are 
now visibly shrinking from* the extreme view he has ta- 
ken of utilitarianism, and seeking to include the idea 
of moral approbation, in order to give their doctrine 
some degree Of strength and consistency. 

5. Into the political consequences of this system we 
shall not allow ourselves to enter at any length. One 
thing, however, there is, of which we would remind 
those who hold up the excellence of Bentham's politi- 
cal writings as a proof of the soundness of his ethical 
system ; we mean the fact that Hobbes, with a logic 
equally, if not more severe, deduced from the very 
same fundamental principles the propriety of all gov- 
ernment being grounded on absolute despotism, as the 
form best suited to the wants of human nature. That 
Bentham was so successful on the subject of jurispru- 
dence arose, we consider, from his giving up the strict 
view of the selfish system with which he started, and 
following the dictates of common sense and of a be- 
nevolence which were more consonant with his own. 
disposition than they were with his moral theory.* 

Moreover, there is a fundamental distinction between 
the principles of legislation and those of private moral- 
ity, which should never be lost sight of. The former 
principles suppose the existence of the latter, and must 

* Or rather, from his confounding; the rule of general interest with that 
of personal interest; but this, as Jouffroy has shown, Introduction to Ethics, 
Lecture XIV., involves the abandonment of the principle on which his 
system is founded. — Ed. 



BENTHAM. 179 

proceed in strict accordance with them, whether it ap- 
pear a matter of policy to do so or not. The object of 
the jurist is, simply to take men with their moral feel- 
ings as they are, already fixed and determined, and so 
to direct their actions as to bring about the greatest 
welfare of the community. Morality says, Fiat justi- 
tia ruat coelum; jurisprudence points out in what ivay 
justice is to be done, so as to tend to the happiness of 
the 'whole nation. The one gives the absolute rule of 
action, the other only directs the details for social pur- 
poses. Moral law is immediately from God ; political 
law, though springing from moral principles, is an 
adaptation of man ; — the one is a code written upon 
the tablet of the human heart; the other, a code writ- 
ten in the statute-book of the empire, conformable, in- 
deed, to moral law, but compiled for social utility. To 
morality, as a science, the utilitarian ground is entirely 
destructive, altering its universal and necessary aspect; 
in politics, utility, directed by moral precept, must be a 
chief element in every enactment. Bentham, looking 
at the subject with the eye of a jurist, by degrees be- 
came blind to every thing but the utilitarian element, — 
an error which, while only partially dangerous in legis 
lation, is to the moralist fatal and deceptive from the 
very first step. 

That Bentham was a great man, a courageous man, 
and in many respects a benevolent man, we believe all 
must be ready to admit; still, we cannot but think that 
he neither read enough to disabuse his mind of many 
a cherished notion, which a wider range of investiga- 
tion would have exploded, nor ever cultivated enough 
that steady, reflective habit of mind which evolves 
truth from the observation of our inward consciousness, 
and reduces, by a close analysis, the admitted facts of 
human nature to their primary origin. With unexam- 
pled patience, he developed the influence of pleasure 
and pain upon human actions ; but a deeper philosophy 
would have pointed out, that these are but the accom- 
paniments of virtue, while the law and the impel ative 
to its obedience come from a surer and a far more ex- 
alted source. 



180 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

III. General Objection to the Followers of Bentham.'] 
The followers of Mr. Bentham have carried to an un- 
usual extent the prevalent fault of the more modern 
advocates of utility, who have dwelt so exclusively on 
the outward advantages of virtue as to have lost sight 
of the delight which is a part of virtuous feeling, and 
of the beneficial influence of good actions upon the 
frame of the mind. 

" Benevolence towards others," says Mr. Mill, " pro- 
duces a return of benevolence from them." * The fact 
is true, and ought to be stated. But how unimportant 
is it in comparison with that which is passed over in 
silence, — the pleasure of the affection itself, which, if it 
could become lasting and intense, would convert the 
heart into a heaven ! No one who has ever felt kind- 
ness, if he could accurately recall his feelings, could 
hesitate about their infinite superiority. The cause of 
the general neglect of this consideration is, that it is 
only when a gratification is something distinct. from a 
state of mind, that we can easily learn to consider it as 
a pleasure. Hence the great error respecting the affec- 
tions, where the inherent delight is not duly estimated, 
on account of that very peculiarity of being a part of 
a state of mind, which renders it unspeakably more 
valuable as independent of every thing without. The 
social affections are the only principles of human na- 
ture which have no direct pains. To have any of these 
desires is to be in a state of happiness. The malevo- 
lent passions have properly no pleasures ; for that at- 
tainment of their purpose which is improperly so called 
consists only in healing or assuaging the torture which 

* Analysis of the Human Mind, Chap. XXIII. 

The author of this work, James Mill, was born at Montrose, in Scotland, 
in ?773, and educated at Edinburgh, being destined for the church. He 
afterwards changed his views, established himself in London in 1800, and 
soon became acquainted with Bentham. He published his History of Brit- 
ish India in 1818, which procured for him a place in the home establish- 
ment of the East India Company. He was also a large contributor to the 
Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, (afterwards incorporated into the 
seventh edition of that work,) on subjects connected with politics and mor« 
als. He died at Kensington in 1836. John Stuart Mill, a living writer of 
eminence, is his son. — Ed. 



JAMES MILL. 181 

envy, jealousy, and malice inflict on the malignant 
mind. It might with as much propriety be said that 
the toothache and the stone have pleasures, because 
their removal is followed by an agreeable feeling. 
These bodily disorders, indeed, are often cured by the 
process which removes the suffering ; but the mental 
distempers of envy and revenge are nourished by every 
act of odious indulgence which for a moment suspends 
their pain. 

The same observation is applicable to every virtuous 
disposition, though not so obviously as to the benevo» 
lent affections. That a brave man is, on the whole, 
far less exposed to danger than a coward, is not the 
chief advantage of a courageous temper. Great dan- 
gers are rare ; but the constant absence of such pain- 
ful and mortifying sensations as those of fear, and the 
steady consciousness of superiority to what subdues 
ordinary men, are a perpetual source of inward enjoy- 
ment. No man who has ever been visited by a gleam 
of magnanimity can place any outward advantage of 
fortitude in comparison with the feeling of being al- 
ways able fearlessly to defend a righteous cause.* 
Even humility, in spite of first appearances, is a re- 
markable example. It has of late been unwarrantably 
used to signify that painful consciousness of inferiority 
which is the first stage of envy.f It is a term conse- 
crated in Christian ethics to denote that disposition 
which, by inclining towards a modest estimate of our 
qualities, corrects the prevalent tendency of human na- 
ture to overvalue our merits and to overrate our claims. 
What can be a less doubtful or a much more consider- 
able blessing than this constant sedative, which soothes 
and composes the irritable passions of vanity and pride ? 

* According to Cicero's definition of fortitude, " Virtus pugnans pro 
cequitate." The remains of the original sense of virtus, manhood, give a 
beauty and force to these expressions, which cannot be preserved in our 
language. The Greek aperr] and the German Tugend originally denoted 
strength, afterwards courage, and at last virtue. But the happy derivation of 
virtus from vir gives an energy to the phrase of Cicero, which illustrates 
the use of etymology in the hands of a skilful writer. 

\ Mr. Mill's Analysis of the Human lUind, Chap. XXII. Sect. II. 

16 



182 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

What is more conducive to lasting peace of mind 
than the consciousness of proficiency in that most deli- 
cate species of equity which, in the secret tribunal of 
conscience, labors to be impartial in the comparison 
of ourselves with others ? What can so perfectly as- 
sure us of the purity of our moral sense, as the habit 
of contemplating, not that excellence which we have 
reached, but that which is still to be pursued, — of not 
considering how far we may outrun others, but how far 
we are from the goal ? 

Those who have most inculcated the doctrine of 
utility have given another notable example of the very 
vulgar prejudice which treats the unseen as insignifi- 
cant. Tucker is the only one of them who occasion- 
ally considers that most important effect of human 
conduct which consists in its action on the frame of 
the mind, by fitting its faculties and sensibilities for 
their appointed purpose. A razor or a penknife would 
well enough cut cloth or meat ; but if they were often 
so used, they would be entirely spoiled. The same 
sort of observation is much more strongly applicable to 
habitual dispositions, which, if they be spoiled, we have 
no certain means of replacing or mending. Whatever 
act, therefore, discomposes the moral machinery of 
mind, is more injurious to the welfare of the agent 
than most disasters from without can be ; for the latter 
are commonly limited and temporary ; the evil of the 
former spreads through the whole of life. Health of 
mind, as well as of body, is not only productive in 
itself of a greater sum of enjoyment than arises from 
other sources, but is the only condition of our frame 
in which we are capable of receiving pleasure from 
without. Hence it appears how incredibly absurd it 
is to prefer, on grounds of calculation, a present in- 
terest to the preservation of those mental habits on 
which our well-being depends. When they are most 
moral, they may often prevent us from obtaining ad- 
vantages". It would be as absurd to desire to lower them 
for that reason, as it would be to weaken the body lest its 
strength should render it more liable to contagious dis- 
orders of rare occurrence. 



JAMES MILL. 183 

It is, on the other hand, impossible to combine the 
benefit of the general habit with the advantages of oc- 
casional deviation ; for every such deviation either pro- 
duces remorse, or weakens the habit, and prepares the 
way for its gradual destruction. He who obtains a for- 
tune by the undetected forgery of a will, may indeed be 
honest in his other acts ; but if he had such a scorn of 
fraud before as he must himself allow to be generally 
useful, he must suffer a severe punishment from con- 
trition ; and he will be haunted with the fears of one 
who has lost his own security for his good conduct. In 
all cases, if they be well examined, his loss by the dis- 
temper of his mental frame will outweigh the profits of 
his vice. 

By repeating the like observation on similar occa- 
sions, it will be manifest that the infirmity of recollec- 
tion, aggravated by the defects of language, gives an 
appearance of more selfishness to man than truly be- 
longs to his nature ; and that the effect of active agents 
upon the habitual state of mind, — one of the consid- 
erations to which the epithet " sentimental " has of late 
been applied in derision, — is really among the most 
serious and reasonable objects of moral philosophy. 
When the internal pleasures and pains which accom- 
pany good and bad feelings, or rather form a part of 
them, and the internal advantages and disadvantages 
which follow good and bad actions, are sufficiently 
considered, the comparative importance of outivard con- 
sequences will be more and more narrowed ; so that the 
Stoical philosopher may be thought almost excusable 
for rejecting it altogether, were it not an indispensably 
necessary consideration for those in whom right habits 
of feeling are not sufficiently strong. They alone are 
happy, or even truly virtuous, who have little need of it. 

The later moralists who adopt the principle of utility 
have so misplaced it, that in their hands it has as great 
a tendency as any theoretical error can have to lessen 
the intrinsic pleasure of virtue, and to unfit our habit- 
ual feelings for being the most effectual inducements 
to good conduct. This is the natural tendency of a 



184 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

discipline which brings utility too closely and frequent* 
ly into contact with action. By this habit, in its best 
state, an essentially weaker motive is gradually sub- 
stituted for others which must always be of more force. 
The frequent appeal to utility as the standard of action 
tends to introduce an uncertainty with respect to the 
conduct of other men, which would render all inter- 
course insupportable. It affords, also, so fair a disguise 
for selfish and malignant passions, as often to hide their 
nature from him who is their prey. Some taint of these 
mean and evil principles will at least creep in, and by 
their venom give an animation not its own to the cold 
desire of utility. The moralists who take an active 
part in those affairs which often call out unamiable pas- 
sions, ought to guard with peculiar watchfulness against 
self-delusions. The sin that must most easily beset 
them is that of sliding from general to particular con- 
sequences, — that of trying single actions, instead of 
dispositions, habits, and rules, by the standard of utility, 
— that of authorizing too great a latitude for discretion 
and policy in moral conduct, — that of readily allowing 
exceptions to the most important rules, — that of too 
lenient a censure of the use of doubtful means when 
the end seems to them good, — and that of believing 
unphilosophically, as well as dangerously, that there 
can be any measure or scheme so useful to the world 
as the existence of men who would not do a base thing 
for any public advantage. It was said of Andrew 
Fletcher, " He would lose his life to serve his country, 
but would not do a base thing to save it." Let those 
preachers of utility who suppose that such a man sac- 
rifices ends to means consider whether the scorn of base- 
ness be not akin to the contempt of danger, and whether 
a nation composed of such men would not be invinci- 
ble. But theoretical principles are counteracted by a 
thousand causes, which confine their mischief as well 
as circumscribe their benefits. Men are never so good 
or so bad as their opinions. All that can be with rea- 
son apprehended is, that they may always produce some 
part of their natural evil, and that the mischief will be 



JAMES MILL. 185 

greatest among the many who seek excuses for these 
passions. Aristippus found in the Socratic representa- 
tion of the union of virtue and happiness a pretext for 
sensuality ; and many Epicureans became voluptuaries 
in spite of the example of their master, easily dropping 
by degrees the limitations by which he guarded his 
doctrines. In proportion as a man accustoms himself 
to be influenced by the utility of particular acts, with- 
out regard to rules, he approaches to the casuistry of 
the Jesuits and to the practical maxims of Caesar Borgia. 

IV. Mr. MilVs Errors respecting Government and 
Education.] Mr. Mill derives the whole theory of gov- 
ernment* from the single fact, that every man pursues 
his interest when he knows it ; which he assumes to be 
a sort of self-evident practical principle, if such a phrase 
be not contradictory. That a man's pursuing the in- 
terest of another, or indeed any other object in nature, 
is just as conceivable as that he should pursue his own 
interest, is a proposition which seems never to have oc- 
curred to this acute and ingenious writer. Nothing, 
however, can be more certain than its truth, if the term 
"interest" be employed in its proper sense of general 
well-being, which is the only acceptation in which it 
can serve the purpose of his arguments. If, indeed, 
the term be employed to denote the gratification of a 
predominant desire, his proposition is self-evident, but 
wholly unserviceable in his argument ; for it is clear 
that individuals and multitudes often desire what they 
know to be most inconsistent with their general welfare. 
A nation, as much as an individual, and sometimes 
more, may not only mistake its interest, but, perceiving 
it clearly, may prefer the gratification of a strong pas- 
sion to it. The whole fabric of his political reasoning 
seems to be overthrown by this single observation; and 
instead of attempting to explain the immense variety 



* Essay on Government, in the Ennjelopcedia Britannica, seventh edition. 
His contributions to that work have also been collected in an octavo vol* 
ame, and published separately. — Ed. 

16* 



186 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

of political facts by the simple principle of a congest of 
nterests, we are reduced to the necessity of once more 
referring them to that variety of passions, habits, opin- 
ions, and prejudices, which we discover only by ex- 
perience. 

Mr. Mill's Essay on Education* affords another ex- 
ample of the inconvenience of leaping at once from 
the most general laws to a multiplicity of minute ap- 
pearances. Having assumed, or at least inferred from 
insufficient premises, that the intellectual and moral 
character is entirely formed by circumstances, he pro- 
ceeds, in the latter part of the essay, as if it were a 
necessary consequence of that doctrine, that we might 
easily acquire the power of combining and directing 
circumstances in such a manner as to produce the best 
possible character. Without disputing for the present 
the theoretical proposition, let us consider what would 
be the reasonableness of similar expectations in a more 
easily intelligible case. The general theory of the winds 
is pretty well understood ; we know that they proceed 
from the rushing of air from those portions of the at- 
mosphere which are more condensed into those which 
are more rarefied ; but how great a chasm is there be- 
tween that simple law and the great variety of facts 
which experience teaches us respecting winds! The 
constant winds between the tropics are large and regu- 
lar enough to be in some measure capable of explana- 
tion ; but who can tell why, in variable climates, the 
wind blows to-day from the east, to-morrow from the 
west? Who can foretell what its shiftings and varia- 
tions are to be ? Who can account for a tempest on 
one day, and a calm on another ? Even if we could 
foretell the irregular and infinite variations, how far 
might we not still be from the power of combining and 
guiding their causes? No man but the lunatic in the 
story of Rasselas ever dreamt that he could command 
\he weather. The difficulty plainly consists in the 
multiplicity and minuteness of the circumstances which 

* In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, seventh edition. 



JAMES MILL. 187 

act on the atmosphere. Are those which influence the 
formation of the human character likely to be less mi- 
nute and multiplied ? * 



* In reply to this criticism, and to other parts of the volume from which 
it is taken, Mr. Mill published anonymously, in 1835, an octavo volume, 
under the title of A Fragment on Mackintosh. On some points the defence 
is able and successful ; but the effect of the whole is greatly impaired by 
the vituperation, not to say scurrility, in which it abounds. 

After Avhat has been said in the text, it is but justice to add, that the later 
followers or admirers of Bentham are not unable to sec, or unwilling to 
acknowledge, his defects. A writer in the Westminster Review, for July, 
1838, who begins by making the great hierophant of utilitarianism to be 
one of " the two great seminal minds of England in their age," expresses 
himself thus : — " Bentham's contempt of all other schools of thinkers, 
and his determination to create a philosophy wholly out of the materials 
furnished by his own mind, and by minds like his own, were his first dis- 
qualifications as a philosopher. His second was the incompleteness of his 
own mind as a representative of universal human nature. In many of the 
most natural and strongest feelings of human nature he had no sympathy ; 
from many of its gravest experiences he was altogether cut off; and the 
faculty by which one mind understands a mind different from itself, and 
throws itself into the feelings of that other mind, was denied him by his 
deficiency of imagination. 

"Bentham's knowledge of human nature is wholly empirical : and the 
empiricism of one who has had little experience. He had neither in- 
ternal experience nor external ; the quiet, even tenor of his life and his 
healthiness of mind conspired to exclude him from both. He never knew 
prosperity nor adversity, passion nor satiety ; he never had even the ex- 
perience which sickness gives, — he lived from childhood to the age of 
eighty-five in boyish health. He knew no dejection, no heaviness of heart. 
He never felt life a sore and a weary burden. He was a boy to the last. 
Self-consciousness, that demon of the men of genius of our time, from 
Wordsworth to Byron, from Goethe to Chateaubriand, and to which this 
age owes most both of its cheerful and its mournful wisdom, never was 
awakened in him. How much of human nature slumbered in him he 
knew not, neither can we know. 

" This, then, is our idea of Bentham. He was a man hoth of remarka- 
ble endowments for philosophy and of remarkable deficiencies for it ; fitted 
beyond almost any man for drawing from his premises conclusions not 
only correct, but sufficiently precise and specific to be practical, but whose 
general conception of human nature and life furnished him with an un- 
usually slender stock of premises. It is obvious what would be likely to 
he achieved by such a man ; what a thinker thus gifted and thus disquali- 
fied could be in philosophy. He could be a systematic and logical half-man, 
hunting half-truths to their consequences and practical application, on a 
scale both of greatness and minuteness not previously exemplified: and 
this is the maracter which posterity will probably assign to Bentham." — 
"Ed. 



188 MORAL PERCEPTIONS ANL EMOTIONS. 



CHAPTER III. 

ANALYSIS OF OUR MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND 
EMOTIONS. 

r 

I. Butler's Proofs of Marts Moral Nature.] Before 
proceeding to this extensive and difficult subject, I shall 
quote a passage from Dr. Butler, in which he has com- 
bined together, and compressed into the compass of a 
few paragraphs, all the most important arguments in 
proof of the existence of the moral faculty which have 
been hitherto under our review. While this quotation 
serves as a summary of what has already been stated, 
it will, I hope, prepare us for entering on the following 
discussions with greater interest and a more enlightened 
curiosity. 

" That which renders beings capable of moral gov- 
ernment is their having a moral nature, and moral fac- 
ulties of perception and of action. Brute creatures are 
impressed and actuated by various instincts and pro- 
pensities : so also are we. But, additional to this, we 
have a capacity for reflecting upon actions and charac- 
ters, and making them an object to our thought; and 
on doing this we naturally and unavoidably approve 
some actions, under the peculiar view of their being 
virtuous and of good desert, and disapprove others as 
vicious and of ill desert. That we have this moral ap- 
proving and disapproving faculty is certain from our ex- 
periencing it in ourselves, and recognizing it in each 
other. It appears from our exercising it unavoidably in 
the approbation and disapprobation even of feigned 
characters ; from the words right and wrong, odious and 
, amiable, base and worthy, with many others of like sig- 
nification in all languages, applied to actions and char- 
acters ; from the many written systems of morals which 
suppose it, since it cannot be imagined that all these 
authors, throughout all these treatises, had absolutely no 
meaning at all to their words, or a meaning merely 



MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 185 

chimerical ; from our natural sense of gratitude, which 
implies a distinction between merely being the instru- 
ment of good and intending it ; from the like distinc- 
tion every one makes between injury and mere harm, 
which Hobbes says is peculiar to mankind, and between 
injury and just punishment, a distinction plainly natural, 
prior to the consideration of human laws. It is mani- 
fest great part of common language and of common be- 
haviour over the world is formed upon supposition of 
such a moral faculty, whether called conscience, moral 
reason, moral sense, or Divine reason, — whether con- 
sidered as a perception of the understanding, or as a 
sentiment of the heart, or, which seems the truth, as in- 
cluding both. Nor is it at all doubtful, in the general, 
what course of action this faculty, or practical discerning 
power within us, approves, and what it disapproves. 
For, as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue con- 
sists, or whatever ground for doubt there may be about 
particulars, yet in general there is in reality a univer- 
sally acknowledged standard of it. It is that which all 
ages and all countries have made profession of in pub- 
lic, — it is that which every man you meet puts on the 
show of, — it is that which the primary and funda- 
mental laws of all civil constitutions over the face of 
the earth make it their business and endeavour to en- 
force the practice of upon mankind, namely, justice, 
veracity, and regard to common good." * 

Upon the various topics here suggested, a copious 
and instructive commentary might be written, but I 
think it better to leave them in the concise and impres- 
sive form in which they are proposed by the author. 

II. Theoretical and Practical Morals.} The science 
of ethics has been divided by modern writers into two 
parts ; the one comprehending the theory of morals, and 
the other its practical doctrines. 

The questions about which the former is employed 
are chiefly the two following. First, by what principle 



nation on the Nature of Virtue. 



190 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

of our constitution are we led to form the notion of 
moral distinctions, — whether by that faculty which 
perceives the distinction between truth and falsehood 
in the other branches of human knowledge, or by a 
peculiar power of perception (called by some the moral 
sense) which is pleased with one set of qualities and 
displeased with another? Secondly, what is the proper 
object of moral approbation? or, in other words, what is 
the common quality or qualities belonging to all the 
different modes of virtue ? Is it benevolence, or a ra- 
tional self-love, or a disposition (resulting from the as- 
cendant of reason over passion) to act suitably to the 
different relations in which we are placed? These two 
questions seem to exhaust the whole theory of morals. 
The scope of the one is to ascertain the origin of our 
moral ideas ; that of the other to refer the phenomena 
of moral perception to their most simple and general 
Jaws. 

The practical doctrines of morality comprehend all 
those rules of conduct which profess to point out the 
proper ends of human pursuit, and the most effectual 
means of attaining them; to which we may add, under 
the .general title of adminicles, (if I may be allowed to 
borrow a technical word of Lord Bacon's,) all those 
literary compositions, whatever be their particular form, 
which have for their aim to fortify and animate our 
good dispositions by delineations of the beauty, of the 
dignity, or of the utility of virtue. 

I shall not inquire at present into the justness of this 
division. I shall only observe that the words theory and 
practice are not in this instance employed in their usual 
acceptations. The theory of morals does not bear, for 
example, the same relation to the practice of morals that 
the theory of geometry bears to practical geometry. In 
this last science all the practical rules are founded on 
theoretical principles previously established. But in the 
former science the practical rules are obvious to the 
capacities of all mankind, while the theoretical princi- 
ples form one of the most difficult subjects of discussion 
that has ever exercised the ingenuity of metaphysicians 



MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 191 

Although, however, a complete acquaintance with the 
practice of our duty does not presuppose any knowl- 
edge of the theory of morals, it does not therefore fol- 
low that false theoretical notions upon this subject may 
not be attended with very pernicious consequences. 
On the contrary, nothing is more evident than this, that 
every system which calls in question the immutability 
of moral distinctions has a tendency to undermine the 
foundations of all the virtues, both private and public, 
and to dry up the best and purest sources of human 
happiness. When skeptical doubts have once been ex- 
cited in the mind by the perusal of such systems, no 
exhortation to the practice of our duties can have any 
effect ; and it is necessary for us, before we think of 
addressing the heart, or influencing the will, to begin 
with undeceiving and enlightening the understanding. 
It is for this reason, that, in such an age as the present, 
when skeptical doctrines have been so anxiously dis- 
seminated by writers of genius, it appears to me to be 
a still more essential object in academical instruction 
to vindicate the theory of morals against the cavils of 
licentious metaphysicians, than to indulge in the more 
interesting and popular disquisitions of practical ethics. 
On the former subject, much yet remains to be done. 
On the latter, although the field of inquiry is by no 
means as yet completely exhausted, the student may be 
safely trusted to his own serious reflections, guided by 
the precepts of those illustrious men who, in different 
ages and countries, have devoted their talents to the 
improvement and happiness of the human race. 

In this department of literature, no country whatever 
has surpassed our own ; whether we consider the labors 
of the great lights of the English Church, or the fugitive 
essays of those later writers who (after the example of 
Addison) have attempted to enlist in the cause of virtue 
and religion whatever aid fancy and wit and elegance 
could lend to the support of truth. It is scarcely neces- 
sary for me to mention the advantage which may be 
derived in the same study from the philosophical re- 
mains of ancient Greece and Rome, — due allowances 



192 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

being made for some unfortunate prejudices produced 
or encouraged by violent and oppressive systems of 
policy. Indeed, with the exception of a few such preju- 
dices, it may with great truth be asserted, that they 
who have been most successful, in modern times, in 
inculcating the duties of life, have been the moralists 
who have trod the most closely in the footsteps of the 
Greek and Roman philosophers. The case is different 
with respect to the theory of morals, which, among the 
ancients, attracted comparatively but a small degree of 
attention, although one of the questions formerly men- 
tioned (that concerning the object of moral approbation) 
was a favorite subject of discussion in their schools. 
The other question, however, (that concerning the prin- 
ciple of moral approbation,) with the exception of a 
few hints in the writings of Plato, may be considered 
as in a great measure peculiar to modern Europe, hav- 
ing been chiefly agitated since the writings of Cud- 
worth in opposition to those of Hobbes ; and it is this 
question, accordingly, (recommended at once by its nov* 
elty and difficulty to the curiosity of speculative men,) 
that has produced most of the theories which charac- 
terize and distinguish from each other the later systems 
of moral philosophy. 

III. Analysis of Moral Perceptions and Emotions.] 
It appears to me that the diversity of these systems has 
arisen, in a great measure, from the partial views which 
different writers have taken of the same complicated 
subject; that these systems are by no means so exclu- 
sive of each other as has commonly been imagined; 
and that, in order to arrive at the truth, it is necessary 
for us, instead of attaching ourselves to any one, to 
avail ourselves of the lights which all of them have 
furnished. Our moral perceptions and emotions are, 
in fact, the result of different principles combined to- 
gether. They involve a judgment of the understanding, 
and they involve also a feeling of the heart ; and it is 
only by attending to both that we can form a just no- 
tion of our moral constitution. In confirmation of this 



HOBBES. 193 

remark, it will be necessary for us to analyze particu- 
larly the state of our minds, when we are spectators of 
any good or bad action performed by another person, 
or when we reflect on the actions performed by our- 
selves. On such occasions we are conscious of three 
different things : — 

1. The perception of an action as right or wrong. 

2. An emotion of pleasure or of pain, varying in its 
degree according to the acuteness of our moral sen- 
sibility. 

3. A perception of the merit or demerit of the agent. 

Section I. 

OF THE PERCEPTION OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 

I. Views entertained by Hobbes.] The controversy 
concerning the origin of our moral ideas took its rise in 
modern times, in consequence of the writings of Mr. 
Hobbes. According to him, we approve of virtuous 
actions, or of actions beneficial to society, from self- 
love, as we know that whatever promotes the interest 
of society has on that very account an indirect tendency 
to promote our own. He further taught, that, as it is 
to the institution of government we are indebted for 
all the comforts and the confidence of social life, the 
laws which the civil magistrate enjoins are the ultimate 
standards of morality. 

Dangerous as these doctrines are, some apology may 
Oe made for the author from the unfortunate circum- 
stances of the times in which he lived. He had been a 
witness of the disorders which took place in England 
at the time of the dissolution of the monarchy by the 
death of Charles the First ; and, in consequence of his 
mistaken speculations on the politics of that period, he 
contracted a bias in favor of despotical government.^ 
and was led to consider it as the duty of a good citizen 
to strengthen, as much as possible, the hands of the 
civil magistrate, by inculcating the doctrines of passive 
obedience and non-resistance. It was with this view 
J7 



194 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

that he was led to maintain the philosophical principles 
which have been already mentioned. He seems like- 
wise to have formed a very unfavorable idea of the 
clerical order, from the instances which his own experi- 
ence afforded of their turbulence and ambition ; and on 
that account he wished to subject the consciences of 
men immediately to the secular powers. In consequence 
of this, his system, although offensive in a very high de- 
gree to all sound moralists, provoked in a more peculiar 
manner the resentment of the clergy, and drew on the 
author a great deal of personal obloquy, which neither 
his character in private life, nor his intentions as a 
writer, appear to have merited. 

II. Reply of his Antagonists.'] Among the antago- 
nists of Hobbes, the most eminent by far was Dr. Cud- 
worth ; and indeed modern times have not produced 
an author who is better qualified to do justice to the 
very important argument he undertook, by his ardent 
zeal for the best interests of mankind, by his singular 
vigor and comprehensiveness of thought, and by the 
astonishing treasures he had collected of ancient liter- 
ature. 

That our ideas of right and wrong are not derived 
from positive law, Cudworth concluded from the fol- 
lowing argument : — " Suppose such a law to be estab- 
lished, it must either be right to obey it, and wrong to 
disobey it, or indifferent whether we obey or disobey it. 
But a law which it is indifferent whether we obey or 
not cannot, it is evident, be the source of moral dis- 
tinctions ; and, on the contrary supposition, if it is 
right to obey the law, and wrong to disobey it, these 
distinctions must have had an existence antecedent to 
the law." * In a word, it is from natural law that pos- 
itive law derives all its force. 

The same argument against Hobbes is thus stated 
by Lord Shaftesbury. 

" It is ridiculous to say there is any obligation on 

* Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. III. Chap. II. 



HOBBES. 195 

man to act sociably or honestly in a formed govern- 
ment, and not in that which is commonly called the 
state of nature. For, to speak in the fashionable lan- 
guage of our modern philosophy, society being founded 
on a compact, the surrender made of every man's pri- 
vate unlimited right into the hands of the majority, or 
such as the majority should appoint, was of free choice, 
and by a promise. Now the promise itself was made 
in a state of nature, and that which could make a prom- 
ise obligatory in the state of nature must make all 
other acts of humanity as much our real duty and nat- 
ural part. Thus faith, justice, honesty, and virtue must 
have been as early as the state of nature, or they could 
never have been at all. The civil union or confederacy 
could never make right or wrong if they subsisted not 
before. He who was free to any villany before his 
contract, will and ought to make as free with his con- 
tract when he sees fit. The natural knave has the same 
reason to be a civil one, and may dispense with his 
politic capacity as oft as he sees occasion ; it is only 
his word stands in the way. A man is obliged to 
keep his word. Why ? Because he has given his 
word to keep it. Is not this a notable account of the 
original of moral justice, and the rise of civil govern- 
ment and allegiance ? " * 

To these observations it may be added, that our no- 
tions of right and wrong are so far from owing their 
origin to positive institutions, that they afford us the 
chief standard to which we appeal, in comparing differ- 
ent positive institutions with each other. Were it not 
for this test, how could we pronounce one code to be 
more humane, more liberal, or more equitable than 
another ? or how could we feel that, in our own mu- 
nicipal regulations, some are consonant and others re- 
pugnant to the principles of justice. " Let any one," 
says a learned and judicious civilian, "acquaint him- 
self with the sanguinary system of Draco, and then 
view it as tempered with the philosophy of Solon, and 

* Freedom of Wit, Tart III. Sect. I. 



196 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

the softer refinements of a better age; let him look 
with the eye of speculation upon an establishment that 
directs ' not to seethe a kid in its mother's milk ' ; 1101 
to ' muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn ' ; 
when our brother's cattle go astray or fail down by the 
way, not to ' hide ourselves from them ' ; that acquits 
the betrothed damsel who was violated at a distance, 
and out of hearing, upon this compassionate sugges- 
tion, — ' For he found her in the field, and the betrothed 
damsel cried, and there was none to save her' ; let him 
reflect, I say, on his own feelings when he considers 
these different enactments, and then judge how far 
they agree with the philosophy of Hobbes." * 

Agreeably to this view of positive institutions, De- 
mosthenes remarks, — " The laws of a country may be 
regarded as a criterion for estimating the morals of the 
state, and the prevailing character of the people." f 

III. Origin and History of Hobbes' 's Doctrine.] It is 
justly observed by Cudworth, that the doctrines now 
under consideration are not peculiar to the system of 
Hobbes ; and that similar opinions have been enter- 
tained in all ages by those writers who were either 
anxious to flatter the passions of tyrannical rulers, or 
who had a secret bias to atheistic and Epicurean prin- 
ciples. 

In confirmation of this remark, he takes a review of 

* Taylor On the Civil Law, p. 159. 

t Adv. Timocrat. Taylor gives the passage from which this is taken in 
the version of the Latin translator : — " Illucl igitur vobis est etiam consi- 
derandum,multosGrascorum ssepe decrevisse, vestris ntendnm esse legilms: 
id quod vobis laudi hand injuria dueitis. Nam verum illud mihi videtur, 
quod quendara apud vos dixisse ferunt : omnes cordatos in ea esse sententia, 
ut leges nihil aliad esse putent quam mores civitates. Danda igitur est opera, 
nt eae quam optima? esse videantur." 

[A new interest has been awakened of late in Hobbes and his writings. 
See Cousin, Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophie Morale au XV IIP Steele, 
Premiere Partie : Ecole Sensualiste, Leqons VII. - IX. Jouffroy, Introduction 
to Ethics, Lectures XIII. and XIV. Damiron, DHistoire de la Philosophic 
au XVII e Siecle, Liv. III. Hazlitt's Literary Remains, Essay VI. Bla- 
key's History of Moral Science, Chap. IV. Mackintosh's Progress of Ethical 
Philosophy, Sect. IV . Fragment on Mackintosh , Sect. II. Hallam's Intro- 
duction to the Literature of Europe, Vol. III. Chap. III. Sect. IV.] 



HOBBES. 197 

the principal attempts that have been made to under- 
mine the foundations of morals, both in ancient anc 
modern times, and interweaves with this history many 
profound reflections of his own. The following para- 
graphs contain the substance of this part of his work, 
and I hope will furnish an interesting, as well as useful, 
introduction to the reasonings I am afterwards to of- 
fer in vindication of the reality and immutability of 
moral distinctions. 

" As the vulgar generally look no higher for the origi- 
nal of moral good and evil, just and unjust, than the 
codes and pandects, the tables and laws, of their coun- 
try and religion, so there have not wanted pretended 
philosophers in all ages, who have asserted nothing to 
be good and evil, just and unjust, naturally and immu- 
tably, </>iW Ka\ aKlvr)T(os ; but that all these things were 
positive, arbitrary, and factitious only. Such Plato 
mentions, in his Tenth Book, De Legibus, who main- 
tained, ' that nothing at all was naturally just, but men, 
changing their opinions concerning them perpetually, 
sometimes made one thing just, sometimes another; 
but whatever is decreed and constituted, that for the 
time is valid, being made so by acts and laws, but not 
by any nature of its own.' And Aristotle more than 
once takes notice of this opinion in his Ethics. ' Things 
honest and just, which politics are conversant about, 
have so great a variety and uncertainty in them, that 
they seem to be only by law and not by nature.' * And 
afterwards f — having divided to bUawv 7t6Kltik6v, l that 
which is politically just,' into <\>v<tlk6v, i. e. l natural,' 
4 which has everywhere the same force,' and vo/ukou, i. e. 
' legal,' ' which, before there be a law made, is indiffer- 
ent, but, when once the law is made, is determined to 
be just or unjust' — he adds, 'Some there are that 
think there is no other just or unjust but what is made 
by law and men, because that which is natural is im- 
mutable, and hath everywhere the same force, whereas 
jura and justa, "rights" and "just things," are every- 

* Ethic. Nic, Lib. I. cap. I. t Lib. V. cap. X 

17* 



198 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

where different.' The latter, therefore, they conceive 
to be analogous to wine and wheat measures, whch va- 
ry from place to place, according to local customs ; the 
former they compare to the properties of fire, which 
produce the same effects in Persia and Greece. 

" After these succeeded Epicurus, the reviver of the 
Democritical philosophy, the frame of whose principles 
must needs lead him to deny justice and injustice to be 
natural things ; and therefore he determines that they 
arise wholly from mutual pacts and covenants of men, 
made for their own convenience and utility. ' Those 
living creatures that could not make mutual covenants 
together not to hurt, nor to be hurt by, one another, 
could not, for this cause, have any such thing as just or 
unjust among them. And there is the same reason for 
those nations that either will not or cannot make such 
compacts : for there is no such thing as justice by itself, 
but only in the mutual congresses of men.' Or, (as 
the late compiler of the Epicurean system expresses 
the same meaning,) 'there are some who think that 
those things which are just are just according to their 
proper, unvaried nature, and that the laws do not make 
them just, but only prescribe according to that nature 
which they have : but the thing is not so.' * 

" And since in this latter age the physiological hy- 
potheses of Democritus and Epicurus have been re- 
vived, and successfully applied to the solving of some 
of the phenomena of the visible world, there have not 
wanted some that have endeavoured to vent also those 
other paradoxes of the same philosophers, viz. that 
there is no incorporeal substance, nor any natural dif- 
ference between good and evil, just and unjust, and to 
recommend the same under a show of wisdom, as the 

* It may be proper to mention that Cudworth alludes here to Gassendi, 
who was at much pains to revive the philosophy of Epicurus, hoth in phys- 
ics and morals, rejecting, however, or palliating, those parts of it which are 
most exceptionable. With this philosopher, (who appears to have been a 
most amiable and exemplary man in private life, and who in learning was 
not surpassed by any of his contemporaries,) Hobbes lived in habits of 
very intimate friendship during his long residence in France. See Gassen 
di Opera, Tom. V, pp. 129 et s&j. 



HOBBES. 1>J& 

deep and profound mysteries of the atomical and cor- 
puscular philosophy, as if senseless matter and atoms 
were the original of all things, according to the song 
of old Silenus in Virgil. Of this sort is that late writ- 
er of ethics and politics, who asserts ' that there are no 
authentic doctrines concerning just and unjust, good 
and evil, except the laws which are established in every 
city ; and that it concerns none to inquire whether an 
action be reputed just or unjust, good or evil, except 
such only whom the community have appointed to be 
the interpreters of their laws.' * ' In the state of na- 
ture,' according to him, ' nothing can be unjust, and the 
notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have 
there no place. Where there is no common power 
there is no law ; where no law, no injustice.' f ' No 
law can be unjust.' J Nay, temperance is no more 
naturally right, according to this philosopher, than 
justice. ' Sensuality, in the sense in which it is con- 
demned, hath no place till there be laws.' § 

" But whatsoever was the true meaning of these 
philosophers that affirm justice and injustice to be on- 
ly by law, and not by nature, certain it is that diverse 
modern theologers do not only seriously, but zealously, 
contend, in like manner, that there is nothing absolute- 
ly, intrinsically, and naturally good and evil, just and 
unjust, antecedently to any positive command or prohi- 
bition of God, but that the arbitrary will and pleasure 
of God, (that is an Omnipotent Being, devoid of all 
essential and natural justice,) by its commands and 
prohibitions, is the first and only rule and measure 
thereof. Whence it follows unavoidably, that nothing 
can be imagined so grossly wicked, or so foully unjust 
or dishonest, but, if it were supposed to be commanded 
by this omnipotent Deity, must needs, upon that hy- 
pothesis, forthwith become holy, just, and righteous. 
For, though the ancient fathers of the Christian Church 
were very abhorrent from this doctrine, yet it crept up 



* Hobbes, De Cine, Praefatio. t Leviathan, Part I. Chap. XIII 

J Ibid., Part II. Chap. XXX. $ Ibid., Part I. Chap. VI. 



200 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

afterward in the scholastic age, Ockham being among 
the first that maintained ' that there is no act evil, but 
as it is prohibited by God, and which cannot be made 
good if it be commanded by him.' And herein Pecrus 
Alliacus and Andreas de Novo Castro, with others, 
quickly followed him. 

" Now the necessary and unavoidable consequences 
of this opinion are such as these : — ' That to love God 
is by nature an indifferent thing, and is morally good 
only because it is enjoined by his command' ; < that ho- 
liness is not a conformity with the Divine nature and 
attributes'; 'that God hath no natural inclination to 
the good of the creatures, and might justly doom an 
innocent creature to eternal torment ' ; — all which prop- 
ositions, with others of the kind, are word for word as- 
serted by some late authors. Though I think not fit 
to mention the names of any of them in this place, ex- 
cepting only one, Joannes Szydlovius, who, in a book 
published at Franeker, hath professedly avowed and 
maintained the grossest of them. And yet neither he, 
nor the rest, are to be thought any more blamewoithy 
herein than many others, that, holding the same premi- 
ses, have either dissembled or disowned those conclu- 
sions which unavoidably follow therefrom, but rather to 
be commended for their openness, simplicity, and inge- 
nuity in representing their opinion naked to the world 
such as indeed it is, without any veil or mask. 

" Wherefore, since there are so many, both philoso- 
phers and theologians, that seemingly and verbally ac- 
knowledge such things as moral good and evil, just and 
unjust, yet contend, notwithstanding, that these are not 
by nature but institution, and that there is nothing nat- 
urally or immutably just or unjust, I shall from hence 
fetch the rise of this ethical discourse or inquiry con- 
cerning things good and evil, just and unjust, laudable 
and shameful, demonstrating, in the first place, that, if 
there be any thing at all good or evil, just or unjust, 
there must of necessity be something naturally and im* 
mutably good and just. And from thence I shall pro* 
ceed afterward to show what this natural, immutable 



^ 



CUDWORTH. 201 

and eternal justice is, with the branches and species 
of it."* 

IV. OiidworWs Theory of Morals.] The foregoing 
very long quotation, while it contains much valuable 
information with respect to the history of moral science, 
will be sufficient to convey a general idea of the scope 
of Cudwortlrs ethical inquiries, and of the prevailing 
opinions among philosophers upon this subject, at the 
time when he wrote. For the details of his argument 
I must refer to his work. It is sufficient for my present 
purpose to observe, that he seems plainly to have con- 
sidered our notions of right and wrong as incapable of 
analysis, that is, (to use the language of more modern 
writers,) he considered them as simple ideas or notions, 
of which the names do not admit of definition. In this 
respect, also, his philosophy differs from that of Hobbes, 
who, as we have already remarked, ascribes our moral 
judgments, not to an immediate perception of the 
qualities of actions, but to a view of their tendencies, 
which we approve or disapprove according as they ap- 
pear to be conducive or not to our own interest, or to 
that of society. Indeed, according to Hobbes, these 
two tendencies coincide, or rather are the same, for h°> 
apprehended that all our zeal for the public good origi- 
nates in a selfish principle. " Man," he said, "is driv- 
en to society by necessity, and whatever promotes it>* 
interest is judged to have a remote tendency to pro- 
mote his own." Thus he attempts to account for ou> 
approbation of virtue by resolving it into self-love, and 
of consequence, to resolve the notions expressed by the 
words right and wrong into other notions more simple 
and general. This theory I have already endeavoured 
to refute at some length, and I have only now to add 
to what was formerly remarked with respect to it, that. 
if it were agreeable to fact, the words right and wrong 



* Eternal mid Immutable Morality, Book I. Chap I. Here, as in somt 
Other cases, Mr. Stewart docs not cite the whole of the passage continu- 
ously, as it stands in the original, hut those parts only which are to his 
purpose, sometimes giving merely the suhstance. — Ed. 



202 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

would be synonymous with advantageous and disadvan- 
tageous ; and to say that those actions are right which 
are calculated to promote our own happiness would be 
an identical proposition. 

Cudworth's opinion, on the contrary, led him to con- 
sider our perception of right and wrong as an ultimate 
fact in our nature. Indeed, to those whose judgments 
are not warped by preconceived theories, no fact with 
respect to the human mind can well appear more incon- 
testable. We can define the words right and wrong 
only by synonymous words and phrases, or by the prop- 
erties and necessary concomitants of what they denote. 
Thus, " we may say of the word right, that it express- 
es what we ought to do, what is fair and honest, what 
is approvable, what every man prof esses to be the rule of 
his conduct, what all men praise, and what is in itself 
laudable, though no man praise it" * In such definitions 
and explanations it is evident we only substitute a sy- 
nonymous expression instead of the word defined, or 
we characterize the quality which the word denotes by 
some circumstance connected with it or resulting from 
it as a consequence ; and therefore we may, with con- 
fidence, conclude that the word in question expresses a 
simple idea. 

The two most important conclusions, then, which 
result from Cudworth's reasonings in opposition to 
Hobbes are these : — First, that the mind is able to 
form antecedently to positive institution the ideas of right 
and wrong ; and secondly, that these words express 
simple ideas, or ideas incapable of analysis. 

From these conclusions of Cudworth a further ques- 
tion naturally arose, — how the ideas of right and 
wrong were formed, and to what principle of our consti- 
tution they ought to be referred. This very interesting 
question did not escape the attention of Cudworth. 
And, iii answer to it, he endeavoured to show that our 
notions of moral distinctions are formed by reason, or, 
in other words, by the power which distinguishes trutli 

* Reid, On the Active Poivers, Essay III. Part III. Chap. V. 



LOCKE. 203 

from falsehood. And accordingly it became, for some 
time, the fashionable language among moralists, to say 
that virtue consisted, not in obedience to the law of a 
superior, but in a conduct conformable to reason. 

At the time when Cudworth wrote, no accurate clas- 
sification had been attempted of the principles of the 
human mind. His account of the office of reason, ac- 
cordingly, in enabling us to perceive the distinction be- 
tween right and wrong, passed without censure, and 
was understood merely to imply, that there is an eternal 
and immutable distinction between right and wrong, no 
less than between truth and falsehood ; and that both 
these distinctions are perceived by our rational powers, 
or by those powers which raise us above the brutes.* 

V. Connection of Locke's Theory of the Origin of 
Ideas with this Inquiry.] The publication of Locke's 
Essay introduced into this part of science a precision 
of expression unknown before, and taught philosophers 
to distinguish a variety of powers which had formerly 
been very generally confounded. With these great mer- 
its, however, his work has capital defects, and perhaps 
in no part of it are these defects more important than 
in the attempt he has made to deduce the origin of our 
knowledge entirely from sensation and refection. To 
the former of these sources he refers the ideas we re- 
ceive by our external senses, — of colors, sounds, hard- 
ness, &c. To the latter, the ideas we derive from con- 
sciousness of our own mental operations, — of memory, 
imagination, volition, pleasure, pain, &c. These, ac- 
cording to him, are the sources of all our simple ideas ; 
and the only power that the mind possesses is to per- 
form certain operations of analysis, combination, com- 
parison, &c, on the materials with which it is thus 
supplied. 

It was this system of Locke's which led him to those 
dangerous opinions that were formerly mentioned con- 

* For some curious notices of Cudworth and the fate of his writings, 
eee "D'Israeli's Amenities of Literature, under the head of The True Intel' 
lectual System of the Universe. — Ed. 



204 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

cerning the nature of moral distinctions, which he seems 
to have considered as entirely the offspring of education 
and fashion. Indeed, if the words right and wrong 
neither express simple ideas, nor relations discoverable 
by reason, it will not be found easy to avoid adopting 
this conclusion. 

In order to reconcile Locke's account of the origin of 
our ideas with the immutability of moral distinctions, 
different theories were proposed concerning the nature 
of virtue. According to one,* for example, it was said 
to consist in a conduct conformable to truth ; accord- 
ing to another,! in a conduct conformable to the fitness 
of things. The great object of all these theories may 
be considered as the same, to remove right and wrong 
from the class of simple ideas, and to resolve moral 
rectitude into a conformity with some relation perceived 
by reason or by the understanding. 

VI. Hutche sorts Theory of a Moral Sense.] Dr. 
Hutcheson saw clearly the vanity of these attempts, 
and hence he was led, in compliance with the lan- 
guage of Locke's philosophy, to refer the origin of 
our moral ideas to a particular power of perception, to 
which he gave the name of the moral sense. " All the 
ideas," says he, " or the materials of our reasoning or 
judging, are received by some immediate powers of 
perception, internal or external, which we may call 
senses." " Reasoning or intellect seems to raise no new 
species of ideas, but to discover or discern the relations 
of those received." J 

According to this system, as it has been commonly 
explained, our perceptions of right and wrong are im- 
pressions which our minds are made to receive from 
particular actions, similar to the relishes and aversions 

* Mr. Wollaston, in his Religion of Nature Delineated. 

t Dr. Clarke, in his Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of 
Natural Religion, and in other works. [For the connection between Locke 
and the subsequent English ethical theories, see Jouffroy, Lectures XXL 
and XXII.] 

\ Nature and Conduct of the Passions, Treatise II. Sect. I. 



HUTCHESON. 205 

gl i en us for particular objects of the external and in- 
ternal senses. 

That this was Dr. Hutcheson's own idea appears 
from the following passage, in which he endeavours to 
obviate some dangerous notions which were supposed 
to follow from this doctrine. " Let none imagine that 
calling the ideas of virtue and vice perceptions of sense, 
upon apprehending the actions and affections of an- 
other, does diminish their reality more than the like as- 
sertions concerning all pleasure and pain, happiness or 
misery. Our reason often corrects the report of our 
senses about the natural tendency of the external action, 
and corrects rash conclusions about the affections of 
the agent. But whether our moral sense be subject to 
such a disorder as to have different perceptions, from 
the same apprehended affections in an agent, at differ- 
ent times, as the eye may have of the colors of an un- 
altered object, it is not easy to determine ; perhaps it 
will be hard to find any instance of such a change. 
What reason could correct if it fell into such a dis- 
order, I know not,, except suggesting to its remembrance 
its former approbations, and representing the general 
sense of mankind. But this does not prove ideas of 
virtue and vice to be previous to a sense, more than a 
like correction of the ideas of color in a person under 
the jaundice proves that colors are perceived by reason 
previously to sense." * 

Mr. Hume, whose philosophy coincides in this respect 
with Dr. Hutcheson's, has expressed himself on this sub- 
ject still more explicitly. " As virtue is an end, and is 
desirable on its own account, without fee or reward, 
merely for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys, 
it is requisite that there should be some sentiment which 
it touches, some internal taste or feeling, or whatever 
you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good 
and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the 
other. 

" Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason 



* Nature and Conduct of the Passions, Treatise II. Sect. IV. 

18 



206 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

and of taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys 
the knowledge of truth and falsehood ; the latter gives 
the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue. 
The one discovers objects as they really stand in nature, 
without addition or diminution ; the other has a pro- 
ductive faculty, and, gilding or staining all natural ob- 
jects with the colors borrowed from internal sentiment, 
raises, in a manner, a new creation. Reason, being 
cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs 
only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, 
by showing us the means of attaining happiness or 
avoiding misery. Taste, as it gives pleasure or pain, 
and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, becomes 
a motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to 
desire and volition. From circumstances and relations, 
known or supposed, the former leads us to the discovery 
of the concealed and unknown. After all circumstances 
and relations are laid before us, the latter makes us feel 
from the whole a new sentiment of blame or approba- 
tion. The standard of the one, being founded on the 
nature of things, is eternal and inflexible, even by the 
will of the Supreme Being. The standard of the other, 
arising from the internal frame and constitution of ani- 
mals, is ultimately derived from that Supreme Will 
which bestowed on each being its peculiar nature, and 
arranged the several classes and orders of existence." * 

In the passage now quoted from Mr. Hume, a slight 
hint is given of his skepticism with respect to the im- 
mutability of moral distinctions ; but, in some other 
parts of his writings, he has openly and avowedly ex- 
pressed his opinions upon this important question. 
The words right and %vrong (according to him) signify 
nothing in the objects themselves to which they are 
applied, any more than the words sweet and bitter., 
pleasant and painful, but only certain effects in the mind 
of the spectator. As it is improper, therefore, (according 
to the doctrines of some modern philosophers,) to say 
of an object of taste that it is sweet, or of heat that it 

* Principles of Morals, Appendix I. 



HUTCHESON. 20? 

is in the fire, so it is equally improper to say of actions 
that they are right or wrong. It is absurd to speak oi 
morality as a thing independent and unchangeable, in- 
asmuch as it arises from an arbitrary relation betiveen 
our constitution and particular objects. The distinction 
of moral good and evil is founded on the pleasure or 
pain which results from the view of any sentiment or 
character ; and, as that pleasure or pain cannot be un- 
known to the person who feels it, it follows that there 
is just so much vice or virtue in any character as every 
one places in it; and that it is impossible in this par- 
ticular we can ever be mistaken* 

Before we proceed to an examination of these con- 
clusions, it may be worth while to remark, that they 
have not even the merit of originality ; for we find from 
the Tlie&tetus of Plato, as well as from other remains 
of antiquity, that the same skepticism prevailed among 
the Grecian sophists, and was supported by nearly the 
same arguments. Protagoras and his followers extend- 
ed it to all truth, physical as well as moral, and main- 
tained that every thing was relative to perception. The 
following maxims in particular have a wonderful coin- 
cidence with Plume's philosophy. " Nothing is true or 
false, any more than sweet or sour, in itself, but relative- 
ly to the perceiving mind." " Man is the measure of 
all things, and every thing is that, and no other, which 
to every one it seems to be, so that there can be nothing 
true, nothing existent, distinct from the mind's own 
perceptions." 

With respect to this skeptical philosophy, as it is 
taught in the writings of Hume, it appears evidently, 
from what has been already said, to be founded en- 
tirely on the supposition, that our perception of the 
moral qualities of actions has some analogy to our per- 
ception of the sensible qualities of matter; and there- 

* " Were I not afraid of appearing too philosophical, I should remind 
my reader of that famous doctrine, supposed to he fully proved in modern 
time-;, that tastes and colors, and all other scnsihle qualities, lie, not in the 
bodies, hut merely in the senses. The case is the same with beauty and 
deformity, virtue and vice." — Hume's Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, 
Tart I. Essay XVIII. 



208 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

fore it becomes a very interesting inquiry for us to ex 
amine how far this supposition is agreeable to fact 
Indeed, this is the most important question that can be 
stated with respect to the theory of morals; and yet > 
confess it appears to me that the obscurity in which ii 
is involved arises chiefly, if not wholly, from the use o* 
indefinite and ambiguous terms. 

That moral distinctions are perceived by a sense is 
implied in the definition of a sense already quoted 
from Dr. Hutcheson. " All the ideas, or the materials 
of our reasoning or judging, are received by some im- 
mediate powers of perception, internal or external, 
which we may call senses. Reasoning or intellect 
seems to raise no new species of ideas, but to discover 
or discern the relations of those received." If this def- 
inition be admitted, there cannot be a doubt that the 
origin of our moral ideas must be referred to a sense ; 
at least there can be no doubt upon this point among 
those who hold, with Cudworth and with Price, that 
the words right and wrong express simple ideas. The 
latter of these authors, a most zealous opposer of a 
moral sense, (and although one of the driest and least 
engaging of our English moralists, yet certainly one of 
the most sound and judicious,) grants that the words 
right and wrong are incapable of a definition, and con- 
siders a want of attention to this circumstance as a 
principal source of the errors which have misled philos- 
ophers in treating of this part of moral science. " It 
is a very necessary previous observation," says he, "that 
right and wrong denote simple ideas, and are therefore 
to be ascribed to some power of immediate perception in 
the human mind. He that doubts need only try to 
enumerate the simple ideas they signify, or to give def- 
initions of them when applied (suppose to beneficence 
or cruelty), which shall amount to more than synony- 
mous expressions. From not attending to this, from 
giving definitions of these ideas, and attempting to de- 
rive them from deduction or reasoning, has proceeded 
most of that confusion in which the question concern- 
ing the foundation of morals has been involved. There 



HUTCHESON. 209 

are, undoubtedly, some actions that are ultimately ap- 
proved, and for justifying which no reason can be as- 
signed, as there are some ends which are ultimately de- 
sired, and for choosing which no reason can be given. 
Were not this true, there would be an infinite series or 
progression of reasons and ends subordinate to one 
another. There would be nothing at which to stop, 
and therefore nothing that could at all be approved or 
desired."* 

It appears from the foregoing passage that Dr. Price, 
as well as Dr. Hutcheson, ascribes our ideas of moral 
distinctions to a power of immediate perception in the 
mind, and therefore the difference between them turns 
entirely on the propriety of the definition of a sense 
which Dr. Hutcheson has given. 

It may be further observed, in justification of Dr. 
Hutcheson, that the skeptical consequences deduced 
from his supposition of a moral sense do not necessari- 
ly result from it. Unfortunately, most of his illustra- 
tions were taken from the secondary qualities of mat- 
ter, which, since the time of Descartes, philosophers 
have been in general accustomed to refer to the mind, 
and not to the external object. But if we suppose our 
perception of right and wrong to be analogous to the 
perception of extension and figure, and other primary 
qualities, the reality and immutability of moral distinc- 
tions seem to be placed on a foundation sufficiently 
satisfactory to a candid inquirer. That our notions of 
primary qualities are necessarily accompanied with a 
conviction of their separate and independent existence 
was formerly shown; and, therefore, to compare our 
perception of right and wrong to our perception of 
extension and of figure, although it may not, perhaps, 
be very accurate or philosophical, does not imply any 
skepticism with respect to the immutability of moral 
distinctions; at least does not justify those skeptical 
inferences which Mr. Hume has endeavoured to deduce 
from Dr. Hutchesoi 



* Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, Chap. I. Sect. III. 

18* 



210 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

The definition, however, of a sense which Dr. Hutch- 
eson has given is by far too general, and was plainly 
suggested to him by Locke's account of the origin of 
our ideas. The words cause and effect, duration, num- 
ber, equality, identity, and many others, express simple 
ideas, as well as the words right and wrong ; and yet 
it would surely be absurd to ascribe each of them to a 
particular power of perception, meaning thereby a 
sense. Notwithstanding this circumstance, as the ex- 
pression moral sense has now the sanction of^use, and 
as, when properly explained, it cannot lead to any bad 
consequences, it may be still retained without incon- 
venience in ethical disquisitions. It has been much in 
fashion among moralists since the time of Shaftesbury 
and Hutcheson, nor was it an innovation introduced by 
them ; for the ancients often speak of a sensus recti el 
honesti; and, in our own language, a sense of duty is a 
phrase not only employed by philosophers, but habitu- 
ally used in common discourse.* 

VII. Price's Theory of Intuitive Perception.] To 
what part of our constitution, then, shall we ascribe 
the origin of the ideas of right and wrong? Dr. Price 
(returning to the antiquated phraseology of Cud worth) 
says, to the understanding, and endeavours to show, in 
opposition to Locke and his followers, that " the power 
which understands, or the -faculty that discerns truth, is 
itself a source of new ideas." 

This controversy turns solely on the meaning of 
words. The origin of our ideas of right and wrong is 
manifestly the same with that of the other simple ideas 
already mentioned ; and, whether it be referred to the 
understanding or not, seems to me a matter of mere ar- 
rangement, provided it be granted that the words right 
and wrong express qualities of actions, and not merely 



* For further notices of Hutcheson and the sentimental moralists gen- 
erally, see Cousin, Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophic Morale au XVIJI G 
Siecte, Seconde Partie : Ecoh Ecossaise; — Jouffroy, Introduction to Ethics, 
Lectures XVI. -XX.; — and Alexander Smith's Philosophy of Morals, Part 
I. Chap. III. — Ed. 



PRICK. 21i 

a power of exciting certain agreeable or disagreeable 
emotions in our minds. 

It may perhaps obviate some objections against the 
language of Cud worth and Price to remark, that the 
word reason is used in senses which are extremely dif- 
ferent : sometimes to express the whole of those pow- 
ers which elevate man above the brutes, and constitute 
his rational nature, — more especially, perhaps, his in- 
tellectual powers ; sometimes to express the power of 
deduction or argumentation. The former is the sense 
in which the word is used in common discourse; and 
it is in this sense that it seems to be employed by those 
writers who refer to it the origin of our moral ideas. 
Their antagonists, on the other hand, understand in 
general, by reason, the power of deduction or argumen- 
tation ; a use of the word which is not unnatural, from 
the similarity between the words reason and reasoning , 
but which is not agreeable to its ordinary meaning. 
" No hypothesis," says Dr. Campbell, " hitherto invent- 
ed has shown that, by means of the discursive facul- 
ty, without the aid of any other mental power, we 
could ever obtain a notion either of the beautiful or the 
good."* The remark is undoubtedly true; and it may 
be applied to all those systems which ascribe to reason 
the origin of our moral ideas, if the expressions ' rea- 
son ' and ' discursive faculty ' be used as synonymous. 
But if the word reason be used in a more general sense, 
to denote merely our rational and intellectual nature, 
there does not seem to be much impropriety in ascrib- 
ing to it the origin of those simple notions which are 
not excited in the mind by the immediate operation of 
the senses, but which arise in consequence of the exer- 
cise of the intellectual powers upon their various objects. 

A variety of intuitive judgments might be mentioned 
involving simple ideas, which it is impossible to trace 
to any origin but to the power which enables us to 
form these judgments. Thus it is surely an intuitive 
truth, that the sensations of which I am conscious, and 

* Philosophy of Rhetoric^ Hook I. Chap. VII. Sect. IV. 



212 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

all those I remember, belong to one and the same be- 
ing, which I call myself. Here is an intuitive judgment 
involving the simple idea of identity. In like manner, 
the changes which I perceive in the universe impress 
me with a conviction, that some cause must have oper- 
ated to produce them. Here is an intuitive judgment 
r involving the simple idea of causation. When we con- 
sider the adjacent angles made by a straight line stand- 
ing upon another, and perceive that their sum is equal 
to two right angles, the judgment we form involves the 
simple idea of equality. To say, therefore, that reason, 
or the understanding, is a source of new ideas, is not 
so exceptionable a mode of speaking as has sometimes 
been supposed. According to Locke, sense furnishes 
our ideas, and reason perceives their agreements or dis- 
agreements ; whereas, in point of fact, these agreements 
or disagreements are in many instances simple ideas, 
of which no analysis can be given, and of which the 
origin must therefore be referred to reason, according to 
Locke's own doctrine. 

In speaking of the hypothesis of a moral sense, I for- 
merly observed that the expression was sanctioned by 
the example of the ancients. The same authority may 
be appealed to in justification of the language used by 
Cudworth and Price, whose ideas on the subject seem 
indeed to be still more conformable to the spirit of the 
Greek philosophy. The leading- principle of action, to 
tiytjioviKov, for example, so much insisted on by Plato 
and others, was plainly considered by them as the fac- 
ulty of reason ,* to (jlvo-ei. becnroTiKov Tovrean to \oyto-TiKov, says 

Alcinoiis, De Doctrina Platonis* In Plato's Thecetetus, 
too, Socrates observes, " that it cannot be any of the 
powers of sense that compares the perceptions of all 
the senses, and apprehends the general affections of 
. things, and particularly identity, number, similitude, dis- 
similitude, equality, inequality, to which he adds ku\6v kcu 
aloxpov, virtue and vice; asserting that this power is 

* Cap. XXVIII. " Sovereignty belongs by nature to the reasoning fac« 

ulty." 



PRICE. 213 

reason, or the soul acting by itself separately from mat- 
ter, and independently of any corporeal impressions 
and passions ; and that, consequently, in opposition to 
Protagoras, knowledge is not to be sought for in sense, 
but in this superior part of the soul. It seems to me, 
that, for the perception of these things, a different or- 
gan or faculty is not appointed, but that the sou] itself, 
and in virtue of its own power, observes these general 
affections of all things. So far we have advanced as 
to find that knowledge is by no means to be sought 
in sense, but in the power of the soul which it employs, 
when within itself it contemplates and searches out 
truth." * 



* Plato could hardly have expressed himself with greater precision, had 
he been arguing against Hutcheson's doctrine of a moral sense. See on 
this subject Cudworth's Immutable Morality, Book III., and Price's Review 
of tlbe Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, Chap. I. Sect. II. 

[For the argument in the text, it is only necessary to mark the points of 
difference which distinguish the truths of the pure or intuitive reason from 
those of the discursive reason, or reasoning. 

1. The former are simple and elementary judgments. They constitute 
a portion of what may be called the data of intelligence, resembling, in 
this respect, the data of sensation and consciousness. They result imme- 
diately from a law of our cognitive faculties, from our original constitution 
as rational beings, and therefore may be regarded, in this sense, as primi 
live or innate. 

2. They are also recognized, assumed, or assented to, as soon as we have 
occasion to apply them, or as soon as the propositions containing them 
are understood. They are not derived truths, either by induction or deduc- 
tion ; they do not depend on testimony, or memory, or experience of any 
kind. All that experience docs for them is to bring about the occasions, 
and the measure of development, on condition of which they spring up in 
the mind itself. They neither require nor admit of proof: reason asserts 
them as being self-evident; and, as such, they are acted on and assented to, 
in proportion as reason is unfolded, by all men. In this sense, therefore! 
they may be pronounced universal. 

3. Again, reason not only affirms that these primitive and universal 
judgments arc true, but, taking for granted the veracity of our cognitive 
faculties, that they cannot not be true. They relate to realities which can- 
not be made the objects of sense or consciousness, and consequently we 
cannot imagine what they are ; nevertheless, the objects of sense and con- 
sciousness, as apprehended by the reason, necessarily presuppose these re- 
alities. These objects do not contain them, but reason sees that they pre- 
suppose them. In word- we may deny that qualities presuppose a sub- 
stance or substratum, in which they inhere, or that body presupposes space, 
which it measures and fills: hut we arc so far from being al)le actually to 
believe in the negative of these propositions, that we cannot bring our- 
selves by any effort to conceive of it as being possible. Hence, we conclude 



214 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

VIII. The Theory which we adopt must maintain the 
Reality and Immutability of Moral Distinctions.] The 
opinion we form, however, on this point, is of little 
moment, provided it be granted that the words right 
and wrong express qualities of actions. When I say of 
an act of justice that it is right, do I mean merely that 
the act excites pleasure in my mind, as a particular 
color pleases my eye, in consequence of a relation which 
it bears to my organ ? or do I mean to assert a truth 
which is as independent of my constitution as the 
equality of the three angles of a triangle to two right 
angles ? Skepticism may be indulged in both cases, 
about mathematical and about moral truth, but in 
neither case does it admit of a refutation by argument. 

For my own part, I can as easily conceive a rational 
being so formed as to believe the three angles of a tri- 
angle to be equal to one right angle, as to believe that, if 
he had it in his power, it would be right to sacrifice the 
happiness of other men to the gratification of his own 
animal appetites, or that there would be no injustice in 
depriving an industrious old man of the fruits of his 
own laborious acquisitions. The exercise of our reason 
in the two cases is very different; but in both cases we 
have a perception of truth, and are impressed with an 
irresistible conviction that the truth is immutable, and 
independent of the will of any being whatever. 

In the passage which was formerly quoted from Dr. 
Cudworth, mention is made of various authors, par- 

that the truths of the pure or intuitive reason are not only primitive and 
universal, but necessary. 

Now the National School of moralists, represented by such writers as 
Cudworth and Price, maintain that morality has its foundation in truths of 
this description, and not, as is held by the Sentimental School, represented 
by such writers as Hutcheson and Hume, in facts of sensibility, or in purely 
instinctive phenomena. 

For more recent authorities on this subject, see Cousin, Sur le Fondement 
des [dies Absolues da Vrai, da Beau, et du Bien. Bouillier, Theorie de la Red- 
son Impersonm.lle. Coleridge's Aids to Reflection; particularly his comment 
on the eighth of the Aphorisms on that which is indeed Spiritual Religion. 
Whe well's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Book I. 

Jouffroy has given, Introduction to Ethics, Lectures XXI. -XXIII., an 
admirable criticism on Price, and other rational moralists of the same 
Behool, including Cudworth and Stewart. — Ed.] 



IMMUTABILITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. 215 

ticularly among the theologians of the scholastic ages, 
who were led to call in question the immutability of 
moral distinctions by the pious design of magnifying 
the perfections of the Deity. I am sorry to observe that 
these notions are not as yet completely exploded; and 
that, in our own age, they have misled the speculations 
of some writers of considerable genius, particularly 
those of Dr. Johnson, Soame Jenyns, and Dr. Paley. 
Such authors certainly do not recollect, that what they 
add to the Divine power and majesty they take away 
from his moral attributes ; for if moral distinctions be 
not immutable and eternal, it is absurd to speak of the 
goodness or of the justice of God. " Whoever thinks," 
says Shaftesbury, " that there is a God, and pretends 
formally to believe that he is just and good, must sup- 
pose that there is independently such a thing as justice 
and injustice, truth and falsehood, right and torong, ac- 
cording to which eternal and immutable standards he 
pronounces that God is just, righteous, and true. If the 
mere will, decree, or law of God be said absolutely to 
constitute right and wrong, then are these latter words 
of no signification at all [when applied to him]." * 

In justice, indeed, to one of the writers above men 
tioned, Dr. Paley, it is proper for me to observe, that the 
objection just now stated has not escaped his attention, 
and that he has even attempted an answer to it; but 
t is an answer in which he admits the justness of the 
nference which we have drawn from his premises ; or, 
in other words, in which he admits, that, to speak of 
the moral attributes of God, or to say that he is just, 
righteous, and true, is to employ words which are al- 
ogether nugatory and unmeaning. That I may not 
be accused of misinterpreting the doctrine of this in- 
genious writer, who on many accounts deserves the 
popularity he enjoys, I shall quote his own statement 
of his opinion on this subject. " Since moral obligation 
depends, as we have seen, upon the will of God, right f 
which is correlative to it, must depend upon the same. 

* Inquiry concerning Virtue, Part. III. Sect. II. 



216 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

Right therefore signifies consistency with the will of God. 
But if the Divine will determine the distinction of 
right and wrong, what else is it but an identical propo- 
sition to say of God that he acts right ? or how is it 
possible even to conceive that he should act wrong ? 
Yet these assertions are intelligible and significant. 
The case is this: by virtue of the two principles, that 
God wills the happiness of his creatures, and that the 
will of God is the measure of right and wrong, we 
arrive at certain conclusions, which conclusions become 
rules ; and we soon learn to pronounce actions right and 
wrong according as they agree or disagree with our rules, 
without looking further ; and when the habit is once 
established of stopping at the rules, we can go back 
and compare with these rules even the Divine conduct 
itself; and yet it may be true, (only not observed by 
us at the time,) that the rules themselves are deduced 
from the Divine will."* 

To this very extraordinary passage, (some parts of 
which I confess I do not completely comprehend, but 
which plainly gives up the moral attributes of God as a 
form of words that convey no meaning,) I have no par- 
ticular answer to offer. That it was written with the 
purest intentions, and from the complete conviction of 
the author's own mind, I am perfectly satisfied from the 
general scope of his book, as well as from the strong 
testimony of the first names in England in favor of the 
worth of the writer ; but it leads to consequences of the 



* Moral Philosophy, Book II. Chap. IX. When Dr. Paley first appeared 
as an author, his reading on ethical subjects seems to me to have heen ex- 
tremely limited, and to have extended little farther than to the works of 
that ingenious and well-meaning, hut fanciful and superficial writer, Abra- 
ham Tucker, author, under the fictitious name of Edward Search, Esq., 
of The Light of Nature Pursued. See the preface to the Moral Philosophy. 
The political part of Paley's book, although by no means unexceptionable, 
displays talents so far superior to the moral, that one would scarcely sup- 
pose them to have proceeded from the same pen. [John Law, to whose 
father the book is dedicated, and who was himself a friend and fellow-tutor 
of Paley and afterwards Bishop of Elphin in Ireland, is said to have as- 
sisted in the composition of the work, and to have written the whole of the 
admirable chapter. Of Reverencing the Deity. Dyer's Privileges of Cam- 
bridge, Vol. II. p. 59.] 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 2\T 

most alarming nature, coinciding in every material 
respect with the systems of those scholastic theologians 
whom Dr. Cudworth classes with the Epicurean phi- 
losophers of old, and whose errors that great and ex- 
cellent writer has refuted with so splendid a display of 
learning, and such irresistible force of argument." * 



Section II. 

OF THE AGREEABLE AND DISAGREEABLE EMOTIONS ARIS- 
ING FROM THE PERCEPTION OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND 
WRONG IN CONDUCT. 

I. Moral Beaut// and Deformity.] It is impossible to 
behold a good action without being conscious of a be- 
nevolent affection, either of love or of respect, towards 
the agent ; and consequently, as all our benevolent af- 
fections include an agreeable feeling, every good action 
must be a source of pleasure to the spectator. Besides 
this, other agreeable feelings, of order, of utility, of 
peace of mind, &c, come, in process of time, to be asso- 
ciated with the general idea of virtuous conduct. 

Those qualities in good actions which excite agree- 
able feelings in the mind of the spectator form what 
some moralists have called the beauty of virtue. 

All this may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to explain 
what is meant by the deformity of vice. 

This view of the moral faculty, which represents it 
as a species of taste, by which we are determined to 
the love of moral excellence, occurs very frequently in 
the works of the ancients. But I shall confine myself 
at present, to one short quotation from Cicero. " Nee 
vero ilia parva vis naturae est rationisque, quod unum 
hoc animal sentit quid sit ordo ; quid sit, quod deceat; 
In factis dictisque qui modus. Itaque eorum ipsorum 

■ Even Wardlaw, though lie rejects Butler's doctrine respecting a natu- 
ral conscience in man, strenuously opposes those who make moral distinc- 
tions depend on the will of God. Christian Ethics, Lecture VI. See also 
Upham's Mental Philosophy, Vol. II. § 2 ( J2 et seq. — Ed. 

i9 



218 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

quce adspectu sentiuntur, nullum aliud animal pulchritu- 
dinem, venustatem, eonvenientiam partium sentit ; quam 
similitudinem ' natura ratioque ab oculis ad animum 
transfer ens, multo etiam magis pulchritudinem, con- 
stantiam, ordinem in consiliis factisque conservandum 
putat ; cavetque ne quid indecore, etTeminateve faciat; 
turn in omnibus et opinionibus et factis, ne quid libi- 
dinose aut faciat aut cogitet : quibus ex rebus conflatur 
et efficitur id, quod quaerimus hone stum ; quod, etiam si 
nobilitatum non sit, tamen honestum sit; quodque vere 
dicimus, etiam, si a nullo laudetur, natura esse laudabile, 
Form am quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tamquam facie m 
honesti vides ; quae si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores, 
ut ait Plato, excitaret sapientise." * 

The same moralists who have applied to virtue and 
to vice the epithets I have now been endeavouring to 
define, have remarked, that, as in natural objects, so also 
in the conduct and characters of mankind, there are 
two different species of beauty ; — the one what is 
properly called beauty, in the more limited and precise 
acceptation of the term ; the other what is properly 
called grandeur or sublimity. The former naturally ex- 
cites love toward the agent, the latter renders him an 
object of our admiration. To the former class belong 
the qualities of gentleness, candor, condescension, and 
humanity. To the latter, magnanimity, fortitude, in- 
flexible justice, self-command, contempt of danger and 
contempt of death ; those qualities which, as exhibited 
in the character of Cato, formed in the judgment of Sen- 

* De Off., Lib. I. 4, 5. "Nor is that power of nature and reason small 
which has given to man alone a perception of order and propriety, and a 
•standard by which to regulate his speech and his actions. Of the objects of 
sense.) no other animal is qualified to perceive the beauty, the grace, and 
the symmetry of parts. But reason enables man to make the same appli- 
cation of this perception of external nature to the mind, and to observe that 
a much higher beauty, harmony, and order ought to be preserved in de- 
signs and in actions, and that unbecoming opinions and dissolute conduct 
should be wholly avoided. From this constitution of nature arises that 
virtue we seek for, which, however little distinguished by the world, is still 
virtue, and which, though none approved, we justly affirm to be of itself 
praiseworthy. Such, my son Marcus, is the form and character of virtue, 
which, according to the opinion of Plato, ' if it could be distinguished foj the 
tt/e, would excite a wonderful love of wisdom.' " 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 219 

cca a spectacle which Heaven itself might behold with 
pleasure. " Ecce spectaculum Deo dignum, ad quod 
respiciat Jupiter, suo operi intentus, vir fortis cum mala 
fortuna compositus." Illustrations of this kind abound 
in those writers who have adopted Shaftesbury's scheme 
of morals. 

II. Distinguishable from our Perceptions of Rigid and 
Wrong.] Without deciding at present on the propriety 
of the expressions moral beauty and moral deformity, it 
is of consequence for us to remark, that our perception 
of the qualities which these words are employed to de- 
note is plainly distinguishable from our perception of 
actions as right or wrong. The latter involves a judg- 
ment with respect to certain attributes of actions, 
which no more depend on our perception than the pri- 
mary qualities of body depend on the informations we 
receive of them by our external senses, or than the dis- 
tinction between mathematical truth and falsehood de- 
pends on the conclusions of our understanding. The 
words beauty and deformity, on the other hand, have al- 
ways a reference to the feelings of the spectator, — to 
the delight or uneasiness which particular actions pro- 
duce on the mind. 

Nor are these perceptions distinguishable from each 
other merely in theory. The distinct operation of each 
in producing the moral sentiments of mankind is easily 
discernible by the most superficial observer ; for, al- 
though they are always in some degree combined to- 
gether, yet they are not always combined in the same 
relative proportions. There are some men who, with 
Marcus in the play, at the bare mention of successful 
iniquity, are " tortured even to madness " ; while others, 
whose judgments with respect to morality are equally 
sound, possess that steady and dispassionate temper 
which 

" Can look on fraud, rebellion, guilt, and Caesar, 
In the calm light of mild philosophy." * 

* Addison's Colo. Act I. Scene I. 



220 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

The rectitude, therefore, of our moral judgments is by 
no means to be estimated by the liveliness of the' im- 
pressions which good or bad actions produce on the 
mind. Indeed, the same circumstances which contrib- 
ute to the accuracy of the former have in some respects 
a tendency to weaken the latter. These, like all other 
passive impressions, are rendered more languid by cus- 
tom;* whereas constant exercise and a proper appli- 
cation of our intellectual powers in general are abso- 
lutely necessary to guard us against the various errors 
by which the power of moral judgment is liable to be 
perverted. The liveliness, too, of our moral feelings 
depends much on accidental circumstances ; — on con- 
stitutional temper, on education, on early associations, 
and, above all, on the culture which the power of im- 
agination has received. . 

Notwithstanding, however, the reality and impor- 
tance of this distinction, it has been but little attended 
to by the greater part of philosophers. The ancients 
had it in view when they spoke of the honestum and 
the pulchrum, the T 6 dUatov and the T 6 ko\6v', but the 
moderns seem in general to have overlooked it almost 
entirely, some of them confining their attention ex- 
clusively to the one perception, and some to the other. 
Clarke, for example, and his followers, neglecting the 
consideration of our moral feelings, have treated of this 
part of our constitution as if it consisted wholly of a 
power of distinguishing between right and wrong ; and 
hence their works, how satisfactory soever to the un- 
derstanding, seldom engage the imagination, or interest 
the heart. Shaftesbury, on the other hand, and his 
numerous admirers, by dwelling exclusively on our per- 
ception of moral beauty and deformity, have been led 
into enthusiasm and declamation, and have furnished 
licentious moralists with a pretence for questioning the 
immutability of moral distinctions. Even Dr. Hutche- 



* On further reflection, this proposition seems to me somewhat doubtful 
Perhaps it may be found that our moral impressions form a singular ex 
eeption to this general law of our constitution. 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 221 

Bon, one of the ablest and most judicious of his disci- 
ples, has contented himself with this partial view of our 
moral constitution. He everywhere describes virtue 
and vice by the effects accompanying the perception of 
them, and makes no distinction between the rectitude 
of an action, as approved by our reason, and its grate- 
fulness to the taste of the observer, or its aptitude to 
excite his moral emotions. 

III. Errors resulting- from an exclusive Regard to the 
Moral Emotions.] Another erroneous conclusion of a 
very dangerous tendency has been suggested by the 
doctrines of Lord Shaftesbury's school. Accustomed 
to define virtue and vice by their agreeable or disagree- 
able effects on the mind of the spectator, his followers 
have been led to extend the meaning of these words far 
beyond their proper signification ; and, as virtue forms 
always an agreeable and vice a disagreeable object of 
contemplation, they have concluded that the converse 
of the proposition is equally true, and that every thing 
that is agreeable or disagreeable in human character 
or conduct might be properly expressed by the words 
virtue and vice. Accordingly, Hume, proceeding on the 
same general principles with Hutcheson, has been led 
to adopt this very conclusion as a fundamental truth 
in ethics, and even to introduce it into the definition 
which he gives of virtue, — " virtue," according to his 
theory, "consisting in the possession of qualities which 
are useful or agreeable to ourselves or to others." * 
That this definition is erroneous is sufficiently evident ; 
for nothing can be plainer than that the words virtue 
and vice are applicable only to those parts of our char- 
acter and conduct which depend on our own voluntary 
exertions. Sensibility, gayety, liveliness, good-humor, 
natural affection, are a source of pleasure to every be- 
holder, and wherever they are to be found entitle the 
possessor to the appellation of amiable ; but in so far as 
they result from original constitution, or from external 



* Hume's Principles of Morals, Sect. IX- Part I. 

19* 



222 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

circumstances over which he had no control, they cer- 
tainly do not render him an object of moral approba- 
tion. 

A further inaccuracy in the philosophy of Shaftes- 
bury and Hutcheson has arisen from the same source, 
the application of the epithets virtuous and vicious to 
the affections of the mind. In order to think with pre- 
cision on this subject, it is necessary for us always to 
remember that the object of moral approbation is not 
affections, but actions. The efforts, indeed, we make to 
cultivate our amiable affections are in a high degree 
meritorious, because the object of the effort is to add to 
the happiness of those with whom we associate, and 
because the effort depends upon ourselves ; but the 
merit in such cases does not consist in the affection, 
but in the efforts by which it has been cultivated. 

The result of the remarks now made on the systems 
of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson amounts to this, that 
they do not draw the line sufficiently between con- 
stitutional good qualities, and those which are volun- 
tary and meritorious. In common discourse, indeed, we 
frequently apply the word virtue to both, but it is the 
last alone which in strict propriety deserves the name : 
and, in our own case, it is of great consequence for us 
to attend to the distinction. In the case of others, as 
it is impossible for us to draw the line, and as the ten- 
dency of our nature is rather to think too unfavorably 
of our neighbours, it may be the safest rule to consider 
every action as meritorious which can be supposed, by 
any reasonable or plausible interpretation, to have prob- 
ably, or even possibly, proceeded from a virtuous motive. 
The author of The Man of Feeling, among the many 
beautiful features in the character of Harley, has not 
failed to remark this candid and amiable disposition, 
" Her benevolence" — he is speaking of his heroine, Miss 
Walton — " was unbounded. Indeed, the natural ten- 
derness of her heart might have been argued by the fri- 
gidity of a casuist as detracting from her virtue in this 
respect, for her humanity was a feeling, not a principle. 
But minds like Harley's are not very apt to make this 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 223 

distinction, and generally give our virtue credit for all 
that benevolence which is instinctive in our nature." 

In offering these criticisms on the writings of Shaftes- 
bury and Hutcheson, I would not be understood as 
detracting from their merits. I am fully sensible of the 
infinite service they have rendered to this branch of sci- 
ence, by rescuing it from the hands of monks and casu- 
ists, and restoring it to its ancient honors. The enthusi- 
asm with which both of them have painted the charms 
of moral excellence, while it delights the imagination 
and exalts the taste, is admirably calculated to lay hold 
of the generous affections of youth, and to kindle in 
their breasts the glow of virtue. The Rhapsody ot 
Shaftesbury in particular, whatever the blemishes in 
point of taste (and they are many) which a critical 
reader may find in it, will remain for ever a monument 
to the powers of his genius, as well as to the purity and 
elevation of his mind. It is in general free from the 
reprehensible sentiments which have given so much just 
offence in some of his earlier publications, and well 
merits the encomium which Thomson has bestowed on 
it in his enumeration of the illustrious names which 
have adorned the literary history of England. 

" The generous Ashley thine ! the friend of man, 
Who scanned his nature with a brother's eye, 
His weakness prompt to shade, — to raise his aim, 
To touch the finer movements of the mind, 
And with the moral beauty charm the heart." 

Still, however, I must again repeat, that if is chiefly 
on account of their practical tendency that I would rec- 
ommend these two eminent writers ; and that, in order 
to guard ourselves against the cavils of skeptics, it is 
necessary to look out for a more solid foundation to 
morality than their philosophy supplies. 

IV. Whether all Beauty depends on its being' Signifi- 
cant or Suggestive of Mental Qualities.'] I must not 
leave this subject of moral beauty, without taking some 
notice of a speculation with respect to it, which formed 
one of the favorite doctrines of the Socratic school, and 



224 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

which Shaftesbury and some other modern writers have 
attempted to revive. In the observations I have hither- 
to made, I have proceeded on the supposition, that the 
words beauty and sublimity are applied to actions and 
characters metaphorically, or from an analogy between 
the emotions which certain moral qualities and certain 
material objects produce in the mind. This, which is 
certainly the more obvious and the more common doc- 
trine, seems to have been adopted by Cicero in the pas- 
sage which I have already quoted. And as the opinion 
we form concerning it has no connection with any of 
the inquiries in which we have just been engaged, I 
was unwilling to distract the attention by mentioning 
any other. The philosophers now referred to have 
adopted a conclusion directly opposite to this, and have 
maintained that the words beauty and sublimity express, 
in their literal signification, qualities of mind; and that 
material objects affect us in this way only by means of 
the moral ideas they suggest. For my own part, I am 
not prepared to say any thing very decided either on 
the one side or on the other ; but I must confess that 
my present views rather incline to the last of these 
doctrines. The following considerations, in particular, 
seem to me to have great weight. 

It is only in the case of our own minds that we have 
any direct or immediate knowledge either of intellectual 
or moral qualities. In the case of other men we know 
them only by their external effects ; that is, either by 
the natural signs of intelligence and sentiment which 
we read in the countenance, or by the information we 
derive from artificial language, or by the inferences we 
draw from their conduct and behaviour. To all these 
external effects, but more particularly to the features 
of the countenance, we apply the epithet of beautiful. 
But I believe it will be found that this epithet is appli- 
cable to them only, or at least chiefly, m so far as they 
are significant. Into this question, however, when pro- 
posed in general terms, I shall not enter ; nor shall I 
take upon me positively to say that there is no beauty 
in certain combinations of complexion and features, ab« 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 225 

Btracted from any particular meaning. It is sufficient 
for my purpose, if it be granted that the beauty of the 
human face consists chiefly in its expression ; and about 
this it is impossible there can be any controversy. The 
human face, therefore, it would appear, is beautiful 
chiefly as it presents to our conceptions the qualities of 
m ind. 

The same observation is applicable very nearly to 
the material universe in general. The pleasurable emo- 
tion it excites in the mind of the peasant or mechanic 
is extremely trifling; but to those whose understand- 
ings have received such a degree of cultivation as to be 
enabled to read in it the characters of power, wisdom, 
and goodness, how sublime, how beautiful, does it ap- 
pear! Even in the case of particular objects, it may 
be doubted whether the beauty of order and uniformity 
does not arise partly from some obscure suggestion of 
design and intelligence. I say partly, because, inde- 
pendent of any such considerations, order and uniform- 
ity please from the aids they afford to our powers of 
comprehension and memory. If these observations are 
well founded, it will follow that it is mind alone that 
possesses original and underived beauty ; and that what 
we call the beauty of the material world is chiefly, if 
not wholly, reflected from intellectual and moral quali- 
ties ; as the light we admire on the disk of the moon 
and planets is, when traced to its original source, the 
light of the sun. The exclamation, therefore, of the 
poet in the following lines would appear, notwithstand- 
ing the enthusiasm which animates it, to be strictly and 
philosophically just. 

" Mind, mind alone, — bear witness earth and Heaven! — 
- The living fountains in itself contains 

Of beauteous and sublime. Here hand in hand 

Sit paramount the graces. Here enthroned, 

Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, 

Invites the soul to never-fading joy." * 

If with these doctrines of the Socratic school we 
combine the fine and philosophical speculations of Mr. 

* Akcnside, Pleasures of Imagination, Book I. 



226 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

Alison with respect to the effect of association, they 
will be found to add greatly to the evidence of the gen- 
eral conclusion. Perhaps it may appear to some that 
the former speculations are resolvable into the latter. 
This, however, is not the case ; for the former relate to 
natural signs ; the latter to arbitrary connections estab- 
lished in the mind by habit In the mind of the philos- 
opher, for example, who traces in the universe the sig- 
natures of the Divine perfections, the beauties he con- 
templates cannot, with propriety, be referred to associa- 
tion, any more than the charms of a beautiful face the 
first time it is seen. But in a mind conversant with 
poetry, to which every object in nature recalls a thou- 
sand agreeable images, a great part of the pleasing 
effect must be referred to this source. Even here, how- 
ever, association operates in a manner which illustrates 
and confirms the general theory, inasmuch as it pro- 
duces its effect by making objects more significant than 
they were before ; or, in other words, by rendering them 
the occasions of our conceiving intellectual and moral 
beauties, of which they are not naturally expressive.* 

Whatever opinion we adopt on this speculative ques- 
tion, there can be no dispute about the fact, that good 
actions and virtuous characters form the most de- 
lightful of all objects to 1he human mind; and that 
there are no charms in the external universe so power- 
ful as those which recommend to us the cultivation of 
the qualities that constitute the perfection and the hap- 
piness of our nature. 

" Look, then, abroad through nature, to the range 
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense, 
And speak, man ! does this capacious scene, 
With half that kindling majesty dilate 
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose, 
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate, 
Amid the crowd of patriots ; and, his arm 
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove 
When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud 

* See the profound and eloquent reflections with which Mr. Alison con- 
cludes the first chapter of his admirable Essays on the Nature and Princi- 
ples of Taste. 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 227 

On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel, 
And bade the father of his country, Hail ! 
For. lo ! the tyrant prostrate in the dust, 
And Rome again is free % Is aught so fair, 
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring, 
]n the bright eye of Hesper or the morn, 
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair 
As virtuous friendship 1 as the candid blush 
Of him who strives with fortune to be just? 
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes r < 
Or the mild majesty of private life, 
Where peace with ever-blooming olive crowns 
The gate, where honor's liberal hands effuse 
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy Avings 
Of innocence and love protect the scene ? "* 

V. Use to be made of this Connection between Natu- 
ral and Moral Beauty.] It is no less evident that these 
two kinds of taste (that for natural and that for moral 
beauty), if not ultimately resolvable into the same prin- 
ciple, are at least very nearly allied, or very closely 
connected ; insomuch that every author who has treat- 
ed professedly of the one has been insensibly led to 
illustrate his subject by frequent references to the other. 
Hence in poetry the natural and pleasing union of 
those pictures which recall to us the charms of exter- 
nal nature, and that moral painting which affects and 
delights the heart. The intentions of Nature, in thus 
associating the ideas of the beautiful and the good, can- 
not be mistaken. Much, I am persuaded, might be 
done by a judicious system of education, in following 
out the plan which Nature has herself, in this instance, 
so manifestly traced; as we find, indeed, was done to a 
very great degree in those ancient schools, who consid- 
ered it as the most important of all objects to establish 
such a union between philosophy and the fine arts as 
might add to the natural beauty of Virtue every attrac- 
tion which the imagination could give her. 

It would be improper to bring this subject to a con- 
clusion without mentioning the attempt which Mr. 
Hume has made to show that what we call the beauty 
of virtue is the beauty of utility. For a particular ex- 

* Akenside, Book I. 



228 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

amination and refutation of this opinion, I refer the 
reader to Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. 
Although, however, Mr. Smith differs from Mr. Hume 
in thinking that virtue pleases because we consider it 
to be useful, he agrees with him that all those qualities 
which we consider as amiable or agreeable are really 
useful either to ourselves or to others. In this respect 
their conclusions coincide with the doctrines of the So- 
cratic school, and afford additional evidence of the be- 
neficent solicitude with which Nature allures us to the 
practice of our duty. " Do you imagine," says Socra- 
tes to Aristippus, "that what is good is not beautiful? 
Have you not observed that these appearances always 
coincide ? Virtue, for instance, in the same respect as 
to which we call it good, is ever acknowledged to be 
beautiful also. In the character we always join the 
two denominations together.* The beauty of human 
bodies corresponds, in like manner, with that economy 
of parts which constitutes them good; and in every 
circumstance of life the same object is constantly ac- 
counted both beautiful and good, inasmuch as it an- 
swers the purposes for which it is designed." f 

Section III. 

OF the perception of merit and demerit. 

I. Origin and Use of Ideas of Merit and Dement.] 
The various actions performed by other men not only 
excite in our minds a benevolent affection towards 
them, or a disposition to promote their happiness, but 
impress us with a sense of the merit of the agents. 
We perceive them to be the proper objects of love and 
esteem, and that it is morally right that they should le- 
ceive their reward. We feel ourselves called on to 
make their worth known to the world, in order to pro- 
cure them the favor and respect they deserve ; and ii 

* By the words KokoKayados and KokoKayadia. 

\ Xcnoph. Manorab., Lib. III. c. 8. The translation is Akenside's. 



MERIT AND DEMERIT. 229 

we allow it to remai.i secret, we are conscious of injus- 
tice in suppressing the natural language of the heart. 

On the other hand, when we are witnesses of an act 
of selfishness, of cruelty, or of oppression, whether we 
ourselves are sufferers or not, we are not only inspired 
with aversion and hatred towards the delinquent, but 
find it difficult to restrain our indignation from break- 
ing loose against him. By this natural impulse of the 
mind a check is imposed on the bad passions of indi 
viduals, and a provision is made even before the estab- 
lishment of positive laws for the good order of society. 

In our own case, how delightful are our feelings 
when we are conscious of doing well? By a species 
of instinct we know ourselves to be the object of the 
esteem and attachment of our fellow-creatures, and we 
feel, with the evidence of a perception, that Heaven 
smiles on our labors, and that we enjoy the approba- 
tion and favor of the Invisible Witness of our conduct. 
Hence it is that we not only have a sense of merit, but 
an anticipation of reward, and look forward to the fu- 
ture with increased confidence and hope. Nor is this 
confidence weakened, provided we retain our integrity 
unshaken, by the strokes of adverse fortune, but, on the 
contrary, we feel it increase in proportion to the efforts 
that we have occasion to make; and even in the mo- 
ment of danger and of death it exhorts us to persevere, 
and assures us that all will be finally well with us. 
Hence the additional heroism of the brave when they 
draw the sword in a worthy cause. They feel them- 
selves animated with tenfold strength, relying on the 
succour of an invisible arm, and seeming to trust, while 
employed in promoting the beneficent purposes of 
Providence, "that guardian angels combat on their 
side." Although, however, this sense of merit which 
accompanies the performance of good actions convin- 
ces the philosopher of the connection which the Deity 
has established between virtue and happiness, he does 
not proceed on the supposition, that on particular oc- 
casions miraculous interpositions are to be made in his 
favor. That virtue is the most direct road to happiness 
20 



230 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

he sees to be the case even in this world ; but he knows 
that the Deity governs by general laws ; and when he 
feels himself disappointed in the attainment of his 
wishes, he acquiesces in his lot, and looks forward with 
hope to futurity. It is an error of the vulgar to expect 
that good or bad fortune is", even in this world, to be the 
immediate consequence of good or bad actions, — a 
prejudice of which we may trace the influence in all 
ages and nations, but more particularly in times of su- 
perstition and -ignorance. From this error arose the 
practices of judicial combat, and of trial by ordeal, both 
of which formerly prevailed in this part of the world, 
and of which the latter (as appears from the Asiatic 
Researches) kept its ground in Hindostan as late as 
1784,* and probably keeps its ground at this day. Ab- 
surd as these ideas are, they show strongly how natu- 
ral to the human mind are the sentiments now under 
consideration; for this belief of the connection between 
virtue and good fortune has plainly taken its rise from 
the natural connection between the ideas of virtue and 
merit, a connection which, we may rest assured, i? 
agreeable to the general laws by which the universe is 
governed, but which the slightest reflection may satisfy 
us cannot always correspond with the order of events 
in such a world as we inhabit at present. 

I am not certain but we may trace something of the 
same kind in the sports of children, who have all a no- 
tion that good fortune in their games of chance de- 
pends upon perfect fairness towards their adversaries, 
and that those are certain to lose who attempt to take 
secretly any undue advantage. 

* " In the code of the Gentoo laws mention is made of the trial by or 
deal, which was one of the first laws instituted by Moses among the Jews. 
See Numbers, Chap. V. Fire or water is usually employed ; but in In- 
dia the mode varies, and is often determined by the choice of the parties. 
I remember a letter from a man of rank, who was accused of correspond- 
ing in time of war with the enemy, in which he says, ' Let my accuser be 
produced ; let me see him face to face ; let the most venomous snakes be 
put into a pot ; let us put our hands into it together ; let it be covered for 
a certain time ; and he who remaineth unhurt shall be innocent.' 

" This trial is always accompanied with the solemnities of a religious 
ceremony." — Crawford's Sketches of the Hindoos, p. 298. 



MERIT AND DEMERIT. 231 

" Pueri ludcntes, Rex eris, aiunt, 
Si recte facies." * 

Indeed, the moral perceptions (although frequently mis- 
applied in consequence of the weakness of reason and 
the want of experience) may be as distinctly traced in 
the mind at that time of life as ever afterwards, when 
surely it cannot be supposed that they are the result, as 
some authors have held, of a conviction, founded on 
actual observation, of the utility of virtue, f 



* Horat. Epist., Lib. I. Ep. 1. 59. 

" Let children sing 
Amid their sports, ' Do right and be a king.' " 

t Cousin expresses clearly and forcibly his views of the connection be- 
tween merit and demerit and the rewards and punishments rightfully inflicted 
by society. Histoire de la Pkilosophie du XVIII 6 Siecle, Vingtieme Le^on. 
We copy a single paragraph from Professor Henry's excellent translation, 
Elements of Psychology, Chap. V. : — " Without any doubt, it is useful to 
society to inflict contempt upon the violator of moral order; without 
doubt, it is useful to society to punish effectually the individual who attacks 
the foundation* of social order. This consideration of utility is real ; it is 
weighty ; but I say that it is not the first, that it is only accessory, and that 
the immediate basis of all penalty is the idea of the essential merit and 
demerit of actions, — the general idea of order, which imperiously demands 
that the merit and demerit of actions, which is a law of reason and of or- 
der, should be realized in a society that pretends to be rational and well 
ordered. On this ground, and on this ground alone, of realizing this law 
of reason and of order, the two powers of society, opinion and government, 
appear faithful to their primary law. Then comes up utility, — the imme 
diate utility of repressing evil, and the indirect utility of preventing it by 
example, that is, by fear. But this consideration has need of a basis su- 
perior to itself, in order to render it legitimate. Suppose, in fact, that there 
is nothing good or evil in itself and consequently neither essential merit 
nor demerit, and consequently, again, no absolute right of blaming or 
punishing ; by what right, then, I ask, do you blame or disgrace a man, or 
make him ascend the scaffold, or put him in irons for life, jftr the advantage 
of others, when the action of the man is neither good nor bad in itself, and 
merits in itself neither blame nor punishment ? Suppose that it is not ab- 
solutely right, just in itself, to blame this man or to punish him, and the 
legitimacy and propriety of infamy and of glory, and of every species of 
reward and punishment, are at an end. Still further, I maintain if punish- 
ment has no other ground than utility, then even its utility is destroyed; 
for in order that a punishment may be useful, it is requisite, — 1st, that he 
upon whom it is inflicted, endowed as he is with the principle of merit and 
demerit, should regard himself as justly punished, and should accept his 
punishment with a suitable disposition ; 2d, that the spectators, equally en • 
dowed with the principle of merit and demerit, should regard the culprit as 
justly punished according to the measure of his crime, and should apply 
to themselves by anticipation the same justice in case of crime, and should 



232 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

II. Hour to guard against Self-deceit.] I shall con- 
clude this subject by again recalling to the attention 
of the reader a very remarkable fact formerly stated, 
that our moral emotions seem to be stronger with re- 
spect to the conduct of others than our own. A man 
who can be guilty, apparently without remorse, of the 
most flagrant injustice, will yet feel the warmest indig- 
nation against a similar act of injustice in another; and 
the best of men know it to be in many cases a useful 
rule, before they determine on any particular conduct, 
to consider how they would judge of the conduct of 
another in the same circumstances. " Do to others as 
ye would that they should do unto you." This is ow- 
ing to the influence of self-partiality and self-deceit. 
Mr. Smith has been so much struck with the difference 
of our moral judgments in our own case and in that of 
another, that he has concluded conscience to be only an 
application to ourselves of those rules which we have 
collected from observing our feelings in cases in which 
we are not personally concerned. I shall' afterwards 
state some objections to which this opinion is liable. 

Were it not for the influence of self-deceit, it pould 
hardly happen that a man should habitually act in di- 
rect opposition to his moral principles. We know, 
however, that this is but too frequently the case. The 
most perfect conviction of the obligation of virtue, and 
the strongest moral feelings, will be of little use in reg- 

be kept in harmony with the social order by the view of its legitimate pen- 
alties. Hence arises the utility of examples of punishments, whether mor- 
al or physical. But take away its foundation in justice, and you destroy 
the utility of punishment; you excite indignation and abhorrence, instead 
of awakening penitence in the victim, or teaching a salutary lesson to the 
public. You array courage, sympathy, every thing noble and elevated in 
human nature, on the side of the victim. You excite all energetic spirits 
against society and its artificial laws. Thus the utility of punishment is 
itself grounded in its justice, instead of justice being grounded in its utili- 
ty. Punishment is the sanction of the law, and not its foundation. Mor- 
al order has its foundation not in punishment, but punishment has its foun- 
dation in moral order. The idea of right and wrong is grounded only on 
itself, on reason which reveals it. It is the condition of the. idea of merit 
and demerit which is the condition of the idea of reward and punishment; 
and this latter is to the two former, but especially to the idea of right and 
wrong, in the relation of the consequence to the principle." — Ed. 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 233 

ulating our conduct, unless we are at pains to attend 
constantly to the state of our own character, and to 
scrutinize with the most suspicions care the motives of 
our actions. Hence the importance of the precept so 
much recommended by the moralists of all ages, — 
u Know thyself." 

These observations may convince us still more of 
the truth of what I have elsewhere remarked with re- 
spect to sentimental reading, and of its total insufficien- 
cy for forming a virtuous character without many other 
precautions.* Where its effects are corrected by habits 
of business, and every instance of conduct is brought 
home by the reader to himself, it may be a source of 
solid improvement; for although strong moral feelings 
do by no means alone constitute virtue, yet they add 
to the satisfaction we derive from the discharge of our 
duty, and they increase the interest we take in the 
prosperity of virtue in the world. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 



I. Ground of Obligation.} According to some sys- 
tems, moral obligation is founded entirely on our belief 
that virtue is enjoined by the command of God. But 
how, it may be asked, does this belief impose an obli- 
gation ? Only one of two answers can be given. 
Either that there is a moral fitness that we should con- 
form our will to that of the Author and the Governor 
of the universe ; or that a rational self-love should in- 
duce us, from motives of prudence, to study every 
means of rendering ourselves acceptable to the Al- 
mighty Arbiter of happiness and misery. 

On the first supposition, we reason in a circle. We 



* Philosophy of the Tinman Mind, Part I. Chap. VIII. Sect. V. 

20* 



284 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

resolve our sense of moral obligation into our sense of 
religion, and the sense of religion into that of moral 
obligation. 

The other system, which makes virtue a mere matter 
of prudence, although not so obviously unsatisfactory, 
leads to consequences which sufficiently invalidate every 
argument in its favor. Among others, it leads us to 
conclude, — -1. That the disbelief of a future state ab- 
solves from all moral obligation, excepting in so far as 
we find virtue to be conducive to our present interest ; 
2. That a being independently and completely happy 
cannot have any moral perceptions or any moral at- 
tributes. 

But, further, the notions of reward and punishment 
presuppose the notions of right and wrong. They are 
sanctions of virtue, or additional motives to the practice 
of it, but they suppose the existence of some previous 
obligation. 

In the last place, if moral obligation be constituted 
by a regard to our situation in another life, how shall 
the existence of a future state be proved, or even ren- 
dered probable, by the light of nature? or how shall 
we discover what conduct is acceptable to the Deity? 
The truth is, that the strongest presumption for such a 
state is deduced from our natural notions of right and 
wrong, of merit and demerit, and from a comparison 
between these and the general course of human affairs. 

It is absurd, therefore, to ask why we are bound to 
practise virtue. The very notion of virtue implies the 
notion of obligation. Every being who is conscious 
of the distinction between right and wrong carries 
about with him a law which he is bound to observe, 
notwithstanding he may be in total ignorance of a 
future state. " What renders obnoxious to punish- 
ment," as Dr. Butler has well remarked, " is not the 
foreknowledge of it, but merely the violating a known 
obligation." Or (as Plato has expressed the same idea), 

ro fiiv opOov vopos eorl fiaaiXiKos* 

* Minos. " Right itself is a royal law." 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 235 

From what has been stated, it follows that the moral 
faculty, considered as an active power of the mind, 
differs essentially from all the others hitherto enumer- 
ated. The least violation of its authority fills us with 
remorse. On the contrary, the greater the sacrifices 
we make in obedience to its suggestions, the greater 
are our satisfaction and triumph. 

II. Butler on the Supremacy of Conscience.] The 
supreme authority of conscience, although beautifully 
described by many of the ancient moralists, was not 
sufficiently attended to by modern writers as a funda- 
mental principle in the science of ethics till the time 
of Dr. Butler. Too little stress is laid on it by Lord 
Shaftesbury ; and the omission is the chief defect in 
his system of morals. Shaftesbury's opinion, however, 
although he does not state it explicitly in his Inquiry, 
seems to have been precisely the same at bottom with 
that of Butler.* 

With respect to Dr. Butler, I shall take this oppor- 
tunity of remarking, that in his sermons On Human 
Nature, in the Preface to his Sermons, and in a short 
Dissertation on Virtue annexed to his Analogy, he has, 
in my humble opinion, gone farther towards a just ex- 
planation of our moral constitution than any other mod- 
ern philosopher. Without aiming at the praise of nov- 
elty or of refinement, he has displayed singular penetra- 
tion and sagacity in availing himself of what was sound 
in former systems, and in supplying their defects. He 
is commonly considered as an uninteresting and obscure 
writer : but, for my own part, I never could perceive 
the slightest foundation for such a charge ; though I 
am ready to grant that he pays little attention to the 
graces of composition, and that the construction of his 
sentences is frequently unskilful and unharmonious. 
As to the charge of obscurity, which he himself antici- 
pated from the nature of his subject, he has replied to 
it in the most satisfactory manner in the Preface al- 

* Sec his Advice to an Author, Part I. Sect. II. 



236 MORAL OBLIGATTON. 

ready referred to. I think it proper to add, -bat I 
would by no means propose these sermons (which were 
originally preached before the learned Society of Lin- 
coln's Inn) as models for the pulpit. I consider them 
merely in the light of philosophical essays. In the 
same volume with them, however, are to be found some 
practical and characteristical discourses, which are pe- 
culiarly interesting and impressive, particularly the ser- 
mons On Self-deceit, and On the Character of Balaam ; 
both of which evince an intimate acquaintance with 
the springs of human action, rarely found in union with 
speculative and philosophical powers of so high an 
order. The chief merit, at the same time, of Butler as 
an ethical writer, undoubtedly lies in what he has writ- 
ten on the supreme authority of conscience as the gov- 
erning principle of human conduct, — a doctrine which 
he has placed in the strongest and happiest lights, and 
which, before his time, had been very little attended to 
by the moderns. It is sometimes alluded to by Lord 
Shaftesbury, but so very slightly as almost to justify 
the censure which Butler bestows on this part of his 
writings. 

The scope of Butler's own reasonings may be easily 
conceived from the passage of Scripture which he has 
chosen as the groundwork of his argument: — "For 
when the Gentiles, wiiich have not the law, do by na- 
ture the things contained in the law, these, having not 
the law T , are a law unto themselves." * 

* " Butler's writings," says Dr. Whewell, " have been of the greatest 
value in preserving and restoring among us true views of morality ; but 
there are some expressions used by him, which, if not duly limited, may 
lead his followers into mistakes. Thus, he sometimes speaks, not only of 
the authority, but of the supremacy, of conscience. Now if by calling con- 
science supreme, it were meant that the principle so described is some- 
thing possessing sovereign and original authority over men's other springs 
of action, this principle would necessarily be the proper ground of rules of 
action ; and all such rules must be derived ultimately from this principle. 
We should then, in order to frame rules of morality, or to decide any moral 
question, have to inquire how we can learn the decisions of conscience on 
such subjects. Conscience is our guide ; where are we to learn what she 
says ? Conscience, the law on the heart, is supreme over all laws ; how 
are we to read this law? Conscience is the test of right and wrong; but 
whose conscience ? for conscience belongs to a person. Butler's opponents 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 237 

III. Other Authorities for the same Doctrine^ One 
of the clearest and most concise statements of this 
doctrine that I have met with is in a sermon On the 
Nature and Obligation of Virtue, by Dr. Adams of Ox- 
ford; the justness of whose ideas on this subject make 

have constantly said, — ' You tell us that conscience is the proper guide 
of action ; but whose conscience ? ours, or yours 1 Our consciences point 
different ways ; — can both be right ? And if not both, how are we to 
know which 1 ' 

" These are familiar and popular arguments ; but they appear to me to 
be decisive against all who ascribe to conscience a supremacy, in the proper 
sense of the term ; — namely, a sovereign and ultimate authority over all 
other principles of action, so that, when a decision is pronounced by con- 
science, there is no further reason to be rendered for it, nor any higher de- 
cision to be sought But I think it is very plain that this was not 

Butler's view, — that he did not thus hold an original and independent 
faculty of conscience, whose decisions would form a permanent body of 
moral rules. I think that, with him, conscience was not a body of truths, 
but a process by which truth is to be obtained ; — a faculty, if you choose, 
but a faculty which must be trained and exercised in order to be used, — 
which may be improved, instructed, and enlightened, — which may be 
blinded and perverted in individual men. Conscience is a faculty of man, 
as reason is a faculty; — a power by exercising which he may come to 
discern truths, not a repository of truths already collected in a visible 
shape. Conscience, indeed, is the reason, employed about questions of 
right and wrong, and accompanied with the sentiments of approbation and 
condemnation which, by the nature of man, cling inextricably to his ap- 
prehension of right and wrong. This is the view that we have been led 
to take of conscience. This is, as I conceive, Butler's view also. That 
by conscience he does not mean any special independent faculty, distinct 
from the reason with its accompanying moral sentiments, is, I think, evident 
from the whole current of his language. He does not confine himself to 
the single term conscience, in his account of the superior principle of our 
nature : on the contrary, he perpetually uses, for this term or with it, other 
terms, which give the same view of it which we have taken. He calls it 
'reflection on conscience, an approbation of some principles or actions, 
and a disapprobation of others ' ; — and again, ' reflex approbation or dis- 
approbation.' All the phrases which he employs manifestly point at a 
principle or faculty, not by which we necessarily have, but by which we 
may (jet, a true knowledge of the course which we ought to take under any 
given circumstances. We are, to use another of his phrases, ' to act suit- 
ably to our whole nature, and especially to the higher and better part of 
our nature'; the constitution of human nature being such that there «j in 
it a higher and better part. This higher and better part tells us that in- 
justice is worse than pain; but it docs not tell us what acts are unjust, 
except through the process of reflection. The notion of injustice is neces- 
sarily the object of disapprobation to the conscience ; but to unfold this 
notion of injustice into detail, so as to see what special acts are included 
in it. — this is the office of the reflection, that is, of the reason." Lectures 
on Systematic Morality) Lecture VI. 

On the whole subject of conscience, see President Wayland's Elementi 
of Moral Science, Book I. Chap. II. — Ed. 



238 MORAL OBLIGATION". 

it the more surprising that his pupil and friend, Dr, 
Samuel Johnson, should have erred so very widely from 
the truth. " Right" says he, "implies duty in its idea. 
To perceive an action to be right is to see a reason for 
doing it in the action itself, abstracted from all other 
considerations whatever; and this perception, this ac* 
knowledged rectitude in the action, is the very essence 
of obligation, that which commands the approbation 
and choice, and binds the conscience, of every rational 
human being." — "Nothing can bring us under an ob- 
ligation to do what appears to our moral judgment 
wrong. It may be supposed our interest to do this, but 
it cannot be supposed our duty. For, I ask, if some 
power, which we are unable to resist, should assume 
the command over us, and give us laws which are un- 
righteous and unjust, should we be under an obligation 
to obey him ? Should we not rather be obliged to 
shake off the yoke, and to resist such usurpation, if it 
were in our power ? However, then, we might be 
swayed by hope or fear, it is plain that we are under 
an obligation to right, which is antecedent, and in order 
and nature superior, to all other. Power may compel, 
interest may bribe, pleasure may persuade, but reason 
only can oblige. This is the only authority which ra- 
tional beings can own, and to which they owe obedi- 
ence." 

Dr. Clarke has expressed himself nearly to the same 
purpose. " The judgment and conscience of a man's 
own mind concerning the reasonableness and fitness of 
the thing is the truest and formallest obligation ; for 
whoever acts contrary to this sense and conscience of 
his own mind is necessarily self- condemned ; and the 
greatest and strongest of all obligations is that which 
a man cannot break through without condemning him- 
self. So far, therefore, as men are conscious of what 
is right and wrong, so far they are under an obligation 
to act accordingly." * 

* Discourse concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religio» t 
Proposition I. 3. 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 239 

I would not have quoted so many passages in illus- 
tration of a point which appears to myself so very 
obvious, if I had not been anxious to counteract the 
authority of some eminent writers who have lately 
espoused a very different system, by showing how 
widely they have departed from the sound and phil- 
osophical views of their predecessors. I confess, too, 
I should have distrusted my own judgment, if, on a 
question so interesting to human happiness, and so 
open to examination, I had been led, by any theoretical 
refinements, to a conclusion which was not sanctioned 
by the concurrent sentiments of other impartial in- 
quirers. The fact, however, is, that, as this view of 
human nature is the most simple, so it is the most 
ancient, which occurs in the history of moral science. 
It was the doctrine of the Pythagorean school, as ap- 
pears from a fragment of Theages, a Pythagorean 
writer, published in Gale's Opuscula Mythologica. It 
is also explained by Plato in some of his Dialogues, 
in which he compared the soul to a commonwealth, 
and reason to the council of state, which governs and 
directs the whole.* 



* " In Plato's Dialogues the question is repeatedly discussed, whether 
the rule of action for man be the pursuit of pleasure and gain, or the inter- 
nal harmony of his nature. You will, many of you, recollect the lively 
and dramatic dialogue at the beginning of The Republic, in which the 
former of these opinions is asserted by one of the interlocutors, and the 
acute and decisive Socratic refutation which it encounters. You will 
recollect, too, the doctrine announced at the close of the fourth book, as 
the result of the previous discussion. ' Virtue, then, as we are thus led to 
see, is a health and beauty and well-being of the soul. Vice is a disease, 
and foulness, and infirmity.' And when the original question is, at this 
point of the argument, again asked, — whether it is better to be just or to 
be unjust, even if the injustice is to remain unknown by all and to meet no 
punishment, — the person to whom the argument is addressed, and who is, 
by this time, brought to a conviction of the truth of the doctrine which it 
is the object of the dialogue to inculcate, says, ' Nay, Socrates, this question 
is now ridiculously superfluous.' And in the ninth book, the discussion 
being really concluded, the speakers, playfully mimicking the practice of 
pronouncing, by the voice of a public crier, a solemn judgment upon the 
merit of a theatrical spectacle, agree to proclaim, — ' The son of Aristo 
gives his judgment that the most virtuous and just is also the most happy, 
and the wicked and unjust the most unhappy ' ; and further, ' that this is 
go, even if their deeds are hidden from all, men and gods. ' " — Whewell's Sys> 
kmaiic Morality , Lecture VI. 



240 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

In the following passage from Cicero the same doc- 
trine is enforced in a manner peculiarly sublime and 
expressive, or, as Lactantius says, poene divina voce. 
" Est quidem vera Lex, recta ratio, naturae congruens, 
diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad 
omcium jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat, quae 
tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut vetat, nee impro- 
bos jubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi nee ooro- 
gari fas est, neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet, neque 
tota abrogari potest. Nee vero aut per senatum aut 
per populum solvi hac lege possumus : neque est quae- 
rendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius: nee erit alia 
Lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac; sed 
et omnes gentes, et omni tempore una lex et sempi- 
terna et immutabilis continebit ; unusque erit com- 
munis quasi magister et imperator omnium Deus. Ille 
legis hujus inventor, disceptator, lator. Cui qui non 
parebit, ipse se fugiet, ac, naturam hominis aspernatus, 
hoc ipso luet maximas poenas, etiamsi caetera supplicia, 
quae putantur, effugerit." * 

It is very justly observed by Mr. Smith (and I con- 
sider the remark as of the highest importance), that, 
"if the distinction pointed out in the foregoing quota- 
tions between the moral faculty and our other active 
powers be acknowledged, it is of the less consequence 
ivhab particular theory we adopt concerning the origin of 
our wnral ideasP And accordingly, though he resolves 
moral approbation ultimately into a feeling of the mind, 
he nevertheless represents the supremacy of conscience 



* De Repnb., Lib. III. 22. " There is a true law, a right reason, con- 
gruous to nature, pervading all minds, constant, eternal ; which calls to 
duty by its commands, and repels from wrong-doing by its prohibitions : 
and to the good does not command or forbid in vain, while the wicked are 
unmoved by its exhortations or its warnings. This law cannot be an- 
nulled, superseded, or overruled. No senate, no people, can loose us from 
it ; no jurist, no interpreter, can explain it away. It is not one law at 
Rome, another at Athens ; one at present, another at some future time ; 
but one law, perpetual and immutable, it extends to all nations and all 
times, the universal sovereign. Of this law the author and giver is God. 
Whoever disobeys it flies from himself, and by the wrong thus done to his 
own nature, even though he should escape every other form of punish- 
ment, incurs the heaviest penalty ' : 






MORAL OBLIGATION. 24.*. 

as a principle which is equally essential to all the dif- 
ferent systems that have been proposed on the subject. 
" Upon whatever we suppose our moral faculties to be 
founded," (I quote his own words,) " whether upon a 
certain modification of reason, upon an original instinct 
called a moral sense, or upon some other principle of 
our nature, it cannot be doubted that they are given us 
for the direction of our conduct in this life. They 
carry along with them the most evident badges of their 
authority, which denote that they were set up within 
us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions ; to 
superintend all our senses, passions, and appetites; 
and to judge how far each of them was to be either 
indulged or restrained. Our moral faculties are by no 
means, as some have pretended, upon a level in this 
respect with the other faculties and appetites of our 
nature, endowed with no more right to restrain these 
last than these last are to restrain them. No other 
faculty or principle of action judges of any other. 
Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment 
of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one 
another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to 
approve or disapprove of one another. But it is the 
peculiar office of those faculties now under considera- 
tion to judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all 
the other principles of our nature." 

" Since these, therefore," continues Mr. Smith, " were 
plainly intended to be the governing principles of hu- 
man nature, the rules which they prescribe are to be 
regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity pro- 
mulgated by those vicegerents which he has thus set 
up within us. By acting according to their dictates 
we may be said, in some sense, to cooperate with the 
Deity, and to advance, as far as in our power, the plan 
of Providence. By acting otherwise, on the contrary, 
we seem to obstruct in some measure the scheme which 
the Author of Nature has established for the happiness 
and perfection of the world, and to declare ourselves 
in some measure the enemies of God. Hence we are 
0-aturally encouraged to hope for his extraordinary favor 
21 



242 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

and reward in the one case, and to dread his vengeance 
and punishment in the other." * 

I have only to add further on this subject, at present, 
that the supreme authority of conscience is felt arid 
tacitly acknowledged by the worst no less than by the 
best of men ; for even they who have thrown off all 
hypocrisy with the world are at pains to conceal theii 
real character from their own eyes. No man ever, in a 
soliloquy or private meditation, avowed to himself that 
he was a villain ; nor do I believe that such a character 
as Joseph, in The School for Scandal, (who is introduced 
as reflecting coolly on his own knavery and baseness, 
without any uneasiness but what arises from the dread 
of detection,) ever existed in the world. Such men 
probably impose on themselves fully as much as they 
do upon others. Hence the various artifices of self- 
deceit which Butler has so well described in his dis- 
courses on that subject. 

It is said by St. Augustine, that at the delivery of 
that famous line of Terence, — 

" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto," — 

" I am a man, and feel an interest in all mankind," — 

the whole Roman theatre resounded with applause.f 

We may venture to say that a similar sentiment, well 

pronounced by an actor, would at this day, in the most 

corrupt capital in Europe, be followed by a similar burst 

of sympathetic emotion. 

" Voyez a nos spectacles 
Quand on peint quelque trait de candeur, de bont&, 
Ou brille en tout son jour la tendre humanite, 
Tous les coeurs sont remplis d'une volupte pure, 
Et c'est la qu'on entend le cri de la nature." % 

" On such occasions," as a late writer remarks, 
" though we may think meanly of the genius of the 
poet, it is impossible not to think, and to be happy 
in thinking, highly of the people ; — the people whose 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III. Chap. V. 
t See a note on this line in Coleman's translation of Terence's Self 
Tormentor. 
\ Gresset, Le Michant. 



AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 243 

opinions may often be folly, whose conduct may some- 
times be madness, but whose sentiments are almost 
always honorable and just ; — the people whom an 
author may delight with bombast, may amuse with 
tinsel, may divert with indecency, but whom he cannot 
mislead in principle, nor harden into inhumanity. It is 
only the mob in the side boxes, who, in the coldness of 
sell -interest, or the languor of outworn dissipation, can 
hear unmoved the sentiments of compassion, of gen- 
erosity, or of virtue." * 



CHAPTER V. 



OF CERTAIN PRINCIPLES WHICH COOPERATE WITH 
OUR MORAL POWERS IN THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE 
CONDUCT. 

In order to secure still more completely the good 
order of society, and to facilitate the acquisition of 
virtuous habits, nature has superadded to our moral 
constitution a variety of auxiliary principles, which 
sometimes give rise to a conduct agreeable to the rules 
of morality and highly useful to mankind, where the 
merit of the individual, considered as a moral agent, 
is inconsiderable. Hence some of them have been con- 
founded with our moral powers, or even supposed to 
be of themselves sufficient to account for the phe- 
nomena of moral perception, by authors whose views 
of human nature have not been sufficiently compre- 
hensive. The most important principles of* this de- 
scription are, — 1st. A Regard to Character. 2d. Sym- 
pathy. 3d. The Sense of the Ridiculous. And 4th. 
Taste. The principle of Self-Love (which was treated 
of in a former section) cooperates very powerfully to 
the same purposes. 

* Mackenzie's Account of tlie German Theatre. Transactions of the 
Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. II. Part II. p. 174. 



244 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

Section I. 

OF DECENCY, OR A REGARD TO CHARACTER. 

Upon this subject I had formerly occasion to offeT 
various remarks, in treating of the desire of esteem. 
But the view of it which I then took was extremely 
general, as I did not think it necessary for me to attend 
to the distinction between intellectual and moral quali- 
ties. There can be no doubt that a regard to the good 
opinion of our fellow-creatures has great influence in 
promoting our exertions to cultivate both the one and 
the other ; but what we are more particularly concerned 
to remark at present is the effect which this principle 
has in strengthening our virtuous habits, and in restrain- 
ing those passions which a sense of duty alone would 
not be sufficient to regulate. 

I have before observed, that the desire of esteem op- 
erates in children before they have a capacity of distin- 
guishing right from wrong; and that the former prin- 
ciple of action continues for a long time to be much 
more powerful than the latter. Hence it furnishes a 
most useful and effectual engine in the business of ed- 
ucation, more particularly by training us early to exer- 
tions of self-command and self-denial. It teaches us, 
for example, to restrain our appetites within those 
bounds which delicacy prescribes, and thus forms us to 
habits of moderation and temperance. And although 
our conduct cannot be denominated virtuous so long as 
a regard to the opinion of others is our sole motive, 
yet the habits we thus acquire in infancy and childhood 
render it more easy for us to subject our passions to 
reason and conscience as we advance to maturity. 
The subject well deserves a more ample illustration • 
but at present it is sufficient to recall these remarks tr* 
the recollection of the reader. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 245 

Section II. 

OF SYMPATHY. 

I. Nature and Functions of Sympathy.] That there 
is an exquisite pleasure annexed by the constitution of 
our nature to the sympathy or fellow-feeling of other 
men with our joys and sorrows, and even with our 
opinions, tastes, and humors, is a fact obvious to vulgar 
observation. It is no less evident that we feel a dispo- 
sition to accommodate the state of our own minds to 
that of our companions, wherever we feel a benevolent 
affection towards them, and that this accommodating 
temper is in proportion to the strength of our affection. 
In such cases sympathy would appear to be grafted 
on benevolence ; and perhaps it might be found, on an 
accurate examination, that the greater part of the pleas- 
ure which sympathy yields is resolvable into that which 
arises from the exercise of kindness, and from the con- 
sciousness of being beloved. 

II. Adam Small's Theory.] The phenomena gener- 
ally referred to sympathy have appeared to Mr. Smith 
so important, and so curiously connected, that he has 
been led to attempt an explanation from this single 
principle of all the phenomena of moral perception. 
In this attempt, however, (not to mention the vague 
use which he occasionally makes of the term,) he has 
plainly been misled, like many eminent philosophers 
before him, by an excessive love of simplicity ; and 
has mistaken a very subordinate principle in our moral 
constitution (or rather a principle superadded to our 
moral constitution as an auxiliary to the sense of duty) 
ior that faculty which distinguishes right from wrong, 
and which (by what name soever we may choose to 
call it) recurs to us constantly in all our ethical disqui- 
sitions, as an ultimate fact in the nature of man. 

I shall take this opportunity of offering a few remarks 
on this most ingenious and beautiful theory, in the 
31* 



24fi AUXILIARY PRIIS HPLES. 

course of which I shall have occasion to state all that 
I think necessary to observe concerning the place which 
sympathy seems to me really to occupy in our moral 
constitution. In stating these remarks, I would be un- 
derstood to express myself with all the respect and ven- 
eration due to the talents and virtues of a writer, whose 
friendship I regard as one of the most fortunate inci- 
dents of my life, but, at the same time, with that en- 
tire freedom which the importance of the subject de- 
mands, and which I know that his candid and liberal 
mind would have approved. 

In addition to the incidental strictures which I have 
already hazarded on Mr. Smith's theory, I have yet to 
state two objections of a more general nature, to which 
?.t appears to me to be obviously liable. But before I 
proceed to these objections, it is necessary for me to 
premise (which I shall do in Mr. Smith's words) a re- 
mark which I have not hitherto had occasion to men- 
tion, and which may be justly regarded as one of the 
most characteristical principles of his system. 

" Were it possible," says he, " that a human creature 
could grow up to manhood in some solitary place, with- 
out any communication with his own species, he could 
no more think of his own character, of the propriety or 
demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the 
beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beau- 
ty or deformity of his own face. All these are objects 
which he cannot easily see, which naturally he does not 
look at, and with regard to which he is provided with 
no mirror which can present them to his view. Bring 
him into society, and he is immediately provided with 
the mirror which he wanted before. It is placed in the 
countenance and behaviour of those he lives with, which 
always mark when they enter into and when they dis- 
approve of his sentiments, and it is here that he first 
views the propriety and impropriety of his own passions, 
the beauty and deformity of his own mind." * 

* Theory <tf Moral Sentiments, Part III. Chap. I. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 247 

III. Two Objections to the Theory in general.\ To 
this account of the origin of our moral sentiments it 
may be objected, — 1st. That, granting the proposition 
to be true, " that a human creature, who should grow 
up to manhood without any communication with his 
own species, could no more think of the propriety or 
demerit of his own sentiments than of the beauty or de- 
formity of his own face," it would by no means author- 
ize the conclusion which is here deduced from it. The 
necessity of social intercourse, as an indispensable con- 
dition implied in the generation and growth of our mor- 
al sentiments, does not arise merely from its effect in 
holding up a mirror for the examination of our own 
character; but from the impossibility of finding, in a 
solitary state, any field for the exercise of our most im- 
portant moral duties. In such a state the moral faculty 
would inevitably remain dormant and useless, for the 
same reason that the organ of sight would remain use- 
less and unknown to a person who should pass his 
whole life in the darkness of a dungeon. 

2d. It may be objected to Mr. Smith's theory, that it 
confounds the means or expedients by which nature en- 
ables us to correct our moral judgments, with the prin- 
ciples in our constitution to which our moral judgments 
owe their origin. These means or expedients he has 
indeed described with singular penetration and sagaci- 
ty, and by doing so has thrown new and most impor- 
tant lights on practical morality ; but, after all his rea- 
sonings on the subject, the metaphysical problem con- 
cerning the primary sources of our moral ideas and 
emotions will be found involved in the same obscurity 
as before. The intention of such expedients, it is per- 
fectly obvious, is merely to obtain a just and fair view 
of circumstances ; and after this view has been ob- 
tained, the question still remains, what constitutes the 
obligation upon me to act in a particular manner ? In 
answer to this question it is said, that, from recollecting 
my own judgments in similar cases in which I have been 
concerned, I infer in what light rny conduct will appear 
to society ; that there is an exquisite satisfaction annexed 



248 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

to mutual sympathy ; and that, in order to obtain this 
satisfaction, I accommodate my conduct, not to my 
own feelings, but to those of my fellow-creatures. Now 
I acknowledge that this may account for a man's as- 
suming the appearance of virtue, and I believe that 
something of this sort is the real foundation of the 
rales of good breeding in polished society ; * but in the 
important concerns of life I apprehend there is some- 
thing more ; for when I have once satisfied myself 
with respect to the conduct which an impartial judge 
would approve of, I feel that this conduct is right for 
me, and that I am under a moral obligation to put it 
in practice. If I had had recourse to no expedient for 
correcting my first judgment, I should nevertheless 
have formed some judgment or other of a particular 
conduct, as right, wrong, or indifferent, and the only 
difference would have been, that I should probably have 
decided improperly, from an erroneous or a partial view 
of the case. 

From these observations I conclude that the words 
right and wrong, ought and ought not ft express simple 
ideas or notions, of which no explanation can be given. 
They are to be found in all languages, and it is impos- 
sible to carry on any ethical speculation without them. 
Of this Mr. Smith himself furnishes a remarkable 
proof in the statement of his theory, not only by the 
occasional use which he makes of these and other sy- 
nonymous expressions, but by his explicit and repeated 
acknowledgments, that the propriety of actions cannot 



* This remark I borrow from Dr. Beattie, who. in his Essay on Truth, 
observes, that the foundation of good breeding is "that kind of sensibility 
or sympathy by which we suppose ourselves in the situation of others, 
adopt their sentiments, and in a manner perceive their very thoughts." 
Part I. Chap. I. The observation well deserves to be prosecuted. 

t Dr. Hutcheson, in his Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, calls ought a 
confused word : — " As to that confused word ought," &c. Sect. I. ad Jin. 
But for this he seems to have had no better reason than the impossibility 
of defining it logically. And may not the same remark be applied to the 
words time, space, motion? Was there ever a language in which these 
words, together with those of ought and ought not, were not to be found ? 
Ought corresponds with the Set of the Greeks, and the oportet and decet oi 
the Latins. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 249 

be always determined by the actual judgments of soci- 
ety, and that, in such cases, we must act according to 
the judgments which other men ought to have formed 
of our conduct. Is not this to admit that we have a 
standard of right and wrong in our own minds, of su- 
perior authority to any instinctive propensity we may 
feel to obtain the sympathy of our fellow-creatures ? 

It was in order to reconcile this acknowledgment 
with the general language of his system that Mr. Smith 
was forced to have recourse to the supposition of " an 
abstract man within the breast, the representative of 
mankind and substitute of the Deity, whom nature has 
constituted the supreme judge of all our actions." * 
Of this very ingenious fiction he has availed himself in 
various passages of the first editions of his book ; but 
he has laid much greater stress upon it in the last edi- 
tion, the sixth, published a short time before his death 
An idea somewhat similar occurs in Lord Shaftesbury's 
Advice to an Author, where he observes, with that 
quaintness of phraseology which so often deforms his 
otherwise beautiful style, that " when the wise ancients 
spoke of a demon, genius, or angel, to whom we are 
committed from the moment of our birth, they meant 
no more than enigmatically to declare, ' that we have 
each of us a patient in ourselves; that we are properly 
our own subjects of practice ; and that we then become 
due practitioners, when, by virtue of an intimate recess, 
we can discover a certain duplicity of soul, and divide 
ourselves into two parties.' " He afterwards tells us, 
that, " according as this recess was deep and intimate, 
and the dual number practically formed in us, we were 
supposed by the ancients to advance in morals and true 
wisdom." f 

By means of this fiction Mr. Smilh has rendered his 
theory (contrary to what might have been expected 
from its first aspect) perfectly coincident in its practical 
tendency with that cardinal principle of the Stoical 
philosophy which exhorts us to search for the rules of 

* Page 203, 5th edition. j Part I. Sect. II. 



250 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

life, not without ourselves, but within: — " Nee te quae* 
siveris extra." Indeed, Butler himself has not asserted 
the authority and supremacy of conscience in stronger 
terms than Mr. Smith, who represents this as a mani- 
fest and unquestionable principle, whatever particular 
theory we may adopt concerning the origin of our 
moral ideas. It is only to be regretted, that, instead of 
the metaphorical expression of " the man within the 
breast, to whose opinions and feelings we find it of 
more consequence to conform our conduct than to those 
of the whole world," he had not made use of the 
simpler and more familiar words reason and conscience. 
This mode of speaking was indeed suggested to him, 
or rather obtruded on him, by the theory of sympathy, 
and nothing can exceed the skill and taste with which 
he has availed himself of its assistance in perfecting 
his system ; but it has the effect, with many readers, of 
keeping out of view the real state of the question, and 
(like Plato's commonwealth of the soul and council of 
state) to encourage among inferior writers a figurative 
or allegorical style in treating of subjects which, more 
than any other, require all the simplicity, precision, and 
logical consistency of which language is susceptible. 

IV. Particular Instances in which Smith lays too much 
Stress on Sympathy.] A few slight observations on de- 
tached passages of Mr. Smith's theory will be useful in 
illustrating more fully certain phenomena referred by 
him, rather too exclusively, to the principle of sympa- 
thy or fellow-feeling. 

In proof of the pleasure annexed to mutual sympa- 
thy, Mr. Smith remarks, that " a man is mortified when, 
after having endeavoured to divert the company, he 
looks around and .sees that nobody laughs at his jest 
but himself. " * It may be doubted, however, if in this 
case a disappointed sympathy be the chief cause of 
his uneasiness. Various other circumstances undoubt- 
edly conspire, particularly the censure which the silence 

* Part I. Sect. I. Chap. II. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 251 

of the company conveys of his taste and judgment, to- 
gether with the proof it exhibits of their sullenness and 
want of good -humor. 

The pleasure, too, which, according to Mr. Smith, 
we receive from reading to a stranger a poem whose 
effect on ourselves has been destroyed by repetition, 
may be explained, without any refinement about sym- 
pathy, by the satisfaction we always feel in communi- 
cating pleasure to another, combined with the flatter- 
ing though indirect testimony paid to the justness of 
our taste by its coincidence with that of an individual 
whose judgment we respect The sympathy of an ac- 
knowledged fool would certainly be in the same cir- 
cumstances a source of mortification. 

In mentioning these considerations, I do not mean to 
dispute that there is an exquisite pleasure arising from 
mutual sympathy ; but only to suggest, that Mr. Smith 
has ascribed to this principle solely various phenomena, 
in accounting for which other causes appear to be no 
less deserving of attention. 

The versatile and accommodating manners which 
Mr. Smith has so beautifully described in various pas- 
sages of his Theory may be assumed from different 
motives, — in some men from a desire to promote the 
happiness of those around them ; and where this is the 
case, it is unquestionably one of the most amiable and 
meritorious forms in which benevolence can appear, 
and contributes more by its daily and constant oper- 
ation to increase the comfort of human life than those 
splendid exertions of virtue which we are so seldom 
called upon to make. In other men, in whom the be- 
nevolent affections are not so strong, it may proceed 
chiefly from a view to their own tranquillity and amuse- 
ment, and may render them agreeable and harmless 
companions, without giving them any claim to the ap- 
pellation of virtuous. In many it arises from views of 
self-interest and ambition ; and in such men, whatever 
pleasure we may have derived from their society, these 
qualities never fail to inspire universal distrust and dis- 
like, as soon as they are known to be the real motives 



252 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

of that pliancy and versatility with which we were at 
first captivated. It would appear, therefore, that the ac- 
commodating temper, where it is approved as morally 
right , is not approved on its own account, but as an 
expression of a benevolent disposition. 

From the combined efforts of the actor and of the 
spectator towards a mutual sympathy, Mr. Smith en- 
deavours to trace the origin of " two different sets of 
virtues." Upon the effort of the spectator to enter into 
the situation of the person principally concerned, and 
to raise his sympathetic emotions to a level with the 
emotions of the actor, are founded "the gentle, the 
amiable virtues, the virtues of candid condescension 
and indulgent humanity." Upon the effort of the per 
son principally concerned to lower his own emotions, 
so as to correspond as nearly as possibl i with those of 
the spectator, are founded " the great, the awful, and 
respectable virtues, the virtues of selJ-denial, of self- 
government, of that command of the; passions which 
subjects all movements of. our nature to what our own 
dignity and honor, and the propriety of our own con- 
duct, require." * If the word qualities were substituted 
for virtues, I agree in general with this doctrine. The 
mode of expression, however, certainly requires correc- 
tion. " Candid condescension" and " indulgent human- 
ity " are always amiable ; and when they really proceed 
from a disposition habitually benevolent, are with great 
propriety called virtues. " Self-denial and self-govern- 
ment" are always respectable, and sometimes awful 
qualities, because they indicate a force of mind which 
few men possess ; but it depends on the motives from 
which they are exercised, whether they indicate a vir- 
tuous or a vicious character. 

As a further illustration of the foregoing doctrine. 
Mr. Smith considers particularly the degrees of the dif- 
ferent passions which are consistent with propriety, 
and endeavours to show, that in every case it is de- 
cent or indecent to express a passion strongly, accord* 

* ibid., a ?. P v. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 253 

ing as mankind are disposed or not disposed to sym- 
pathize with it. It is unbecoming, for example, to ex- 
press strongly any of those passions which arise from 
a certain condition of the body ; because other men 
who are not in the same condition cannot be expected 
to sympathize with them. It is unbecoming to cry out 
with bodily pain, because the sympathy felt by the 
spectator bears no proportion to the acnteness of what 
is felt by the sufferer. The case is somewhat similar 
with those passions which take their origin from a par- 
ticular turn or habit of the imagination.* 

All violent expressions of such passions are undoubt- 
edly offensive, and good breeding dictates that they 
should be restrained ; but not because the spectator 
finds it difficult to enter into the situation of the person 
principally concerned ; perhaps the opposite reason 
would be nearer the truth. To eat voraciously in the 
presence of a company who have already dined would 
be obviously indecent ; but I apprehend, not so much 
so as to eat even moderately in presence of one whom 
we knew to be hungry, and who was not permitted to 
share in the repast. With respect to bodily pain, it ap- 
pears to me that there is no calamity ^whatever which 
so completely interests the spectator, or with which his 
sympathy is so acute and lively. It is on this account 
that a steady composure under it, while it indicates 
the manly quality of self-command, has something in 
it peculiarly amiable, when we suppose that it proceeds 
in any degree from a tenderness for the feelings of oth- 
ers. In many surgical operations it is probable that 
the imagination of the pain exceeds the reality ; and 
there cannot be a doubt, that, where the patient is the 
object of our love, the sufferings which he feels require 
less fortitude than ours. 

Again, in the case of the unsocial passions of " ha- 
tred and resentment," the sympathy of the spectatoi 
" is divided" between the person who feels the passion 
and the person who is the object of it. " We are con- 



* Ibid., Sect. II. Chap. I. 

22 



254 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

cerned for both, and our fear for what the one may suf- 
fer damps our resentment for what the other has suf- 
fered." * Hence the imperfect degree in which we sym- 
pathize with such passions, and the propriety, when 
under their influence, of moderating their expression 
to a much greater degree than in the case of any other 
emotions. 

Abstraction made of all considerations of this kind, 
satisfactory reasons may be given for our listening 
with caution to the dictates of resentment when we 
ourselves are the sufferers. Experience must soon sat- 
isfy us how apt this passion is to blind the judgment, 
and to exaggerate in our estimation the injury we have 
received ; and how certainly we lay in matter for future 
remorse for our cooler hours, if we obey its first sugges- 
tions. A wise man, therefore, learns to delay forming 
his resolutions till his passion has in some degree sub- 
sided ; — not in order to obtain the sympathy of other 
men, but in order to secure the approbation of his own 
conscience. If he conceives to himself what conduct 
the impartial spectator will approve of, it is merely 
as an expedient to divest himself of the partialities of 
self-love; and When he acts agreeably to what he sup- 
poses to be, on this occasion ; the unbiased judgment 
of spectators, his satisfaction arises, not from the posses- 
sion of their sympathy, but from a consciousness that 
he has done his best to ascertain what was rights and 
has regulated his conduct accordingly. 

" Where there is no envy in the case, our propensity 
to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our pro- 
pensity to sympathize with sorrow." 

" It is on account of this dull sensibility to the af- 
flictions of others, that magnanimity amidst great dis^ 
tress always appears so divinely graceful." f 
' If this were true, would it not follow that the admi- 
ration of heroic magnanimity would be in proportion 
to the insensibility of the spectator ? 

" Finally, it is because mankind are more disposed 

* Ibid., Chap. III. t Ibid., Sect. III. Chap. I. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 255 

to court the favor, to comply with the humors, and to 
judge with indulgence the actions, of the prosperous 
than of the unfortunate, that we make parade of our 
riches, and conceal our poverty." — " It is the misfor- 
tunes of kings alone," Mr. Smith adds, " which afford 
the proper subjects for tragedy." * 

Of this last proposition I confess I have some doubts, 
at least to the extent in which it is here stated ; and I 
am inclined to think that, in those cases where it holds, 
it may be easily accounted for on more obvious princi- 
ples. By far the greater number of tragedies are found- 
ed on historical facts; and history records only the 
transactions of men in elevated stations. But even in 
these tragedies the most interesting personages are fre- 
quently domestics or captives. The old shepherd in 
Douglas is surely a more interesting character than 
Lord Randolph. And for my own part I am not 
ashamed to confess that I have shed more tears at 
some tragedies bourgeoises and comedies lannoy antes 
of very inferior merit, than were ever extorted from me 
by the exquisite poetry of Corneille, Racine, or Vol- 
taire. 

The fortunes of the great, indeed, interest us more 
than those of men in inferior stations. But for this 
there are various causes, independent of that assigned 
by Mr. Smith. 1. Their destiny involves the fortunes 
of many, and frequently affects the public interest. 
2. Their situation points them out to public atten- 
tion, and renders them subjects of general and daily 
conversation; and, accordingly, we may remark a cu- 
riosity perfectly analogous to that which the history of 
the great excites with respect to the biography of all 
men who have been long and constantly in the view of 
the world. The trifling anecdotes in the life of Quin 
or Garrick find as many readers as the important events 
connected with the history of Frederic the Great. 

V. Historical Notices of the Doctrine.] In my Ac* 

* Ibid., Chap. II. 



256 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

count of the Life and Writings of Mr Smith, I observed 
that, according to the learned translator of Aristotle's 
Ethics and Politics, " the general idea which runs 
through Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments was 
obviously borrowed from the following passage of Po- 
lybius. ' From the union of the two sexes, to which all 
are naturally inclined, children are born. When any of 
these, therefore, being arrived at perfect age, instead of 
yielding suitable returns of gratitude and assistance to 
those by whom they have been bred, on the contrary 
attempt to injure them by words or actions, it is mani- 
fest that those who behold the wrong, after having also 
seen the sufferings and the anxious cares that were sus- 
tained by the parents in the nourishment and education 
of their children, must be greatly offended and dis- 
pleased at such proceeding. For man, who, among all 
the various kinds of animals, is alone endowed with 
the faculty of reason, cannot, like the rest, pass over 
such actions, but will make reflection on what he sees; 
and, comparing likewise the future with the present, 
will not fail to express his indignation at this injurious 
treatment; to which, as he foresees, he may also at 
some time be exposed. Thus again, when any one 
who has been succoured by another in the time of dan- 
ger, instead of showing the like kindness to his benefac- 
tor, endeavours at any time to destroy or hurt him, it 
is certain that all men must be shocked by such ingrat- 
itude, through sympathy with the resentment of their 
neighbour, and from an apprehension also that the case 
may be their own. And from hence arises in the mind 
of every man a certain notion of the nature and force 
of duty, in which consists both the beginning and the 
end of justice. In like manner, the man who, in de- 
fence of others, is seen to throw himself the foremost 
into every danger, and even to sustain the fury of the 
fiercest animals, never fails to obtain the loudest accla- 
mations of applause and veneration from all the multi- 
tude, while he who shows a different conduct is pursued 
with censure and reproach. And thus it is that the 
people begin to discern the nature of things honorable 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 25J 

and base, and in what consists the difference between 
them ; and to perceive that the former, on account of 
the advantage that attends them, are fit to be admired 
and imitated, and the latter to be detested and avoid- 
ed.' " * 

" The doctrine," says Dr. Gillies, " contained in this 
passage is expanded by Mr. Smith into a theory of mor- 
al sentiments. But he departs from his author in pla* 
cing the perception of right and wrong in sentiment or 
feeling, ultimately and simply. Polybius, on the con- 
trary, maintains, with Aristotle, that these notions arise 
from reason or intellect operating on affection or appe- 
tite ; or, in other words, that the moral faculty is a 
compound, and may be resolved into two simpler prin- 
ciples of the mind." f 

The only expression I object to in the preceding 
sentences is the phrase his author, which has the appear- 
ance of insinuating a charge of plagiarism against Mr. 
Smith ; — a charge which, I am confident, he did not 
deserve, and to which the above extract does not, in my 
opinion, afford any plausible color. It exhibits, indeed, 
an instance of a curious coincidence between two phi- 
losophers in their views of the same subject, and as 
such I have no doubt that Mr. Smith himself would 
have remarked it, had it occurred to his memory when 
he was writing his book. Of such accidental coinci- 
dences between different minds, examples present them- 
selves every day to those who, after having drawn 
from their internal resources all the lights they could 
supply on a particular question, have the curiosity to 
compare their own conclusions with those of their pre- 
decessors. And it is extremely worthy of observation, 
that, in proportion as any conclusion approaches to the 
truth, the number of previous approximations to it may 
be reasonably expected to be multiplied. 

In the instance before us, however, the question 
about originality is of little or no moment, for the pe- 

* Lib. VI. Cap. VI., Hampton's trnnslation. 

i Gillies's Aristot. Ethics, Book III. Chap. IV., note. 

22* 



258 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

culiar merit of Mr. Smith's work does not lie in his 
general principle, but in the skilful use he has made of 
it to give a systematical arrangement to the most im- 
portant discussions and doctrines of ethics. In this 
point of view, the Theory of Moral Sentiments may be 
justly regarded as one of the most original efforts of 
the human mind in that branch of science to which it 
relates ; and even if we were to suppose that it was 
first suggested to the author by a remark of which the 
world had been in possession for two thousand years 
before, this very circumstance would only reflect a 
stronger lustre on the novelty of his design, and on the 
invention and taste displayed in its execution. 

In the same work I have observed, that, " in studying 
the connection and filiation of successive theories, 
when we are at a loss in any instance for a link to 
complete the continuity of philosophical speculation, it 
seems much more reasonable to search for it in the sys- 
tems of the immediately preceding period, and in the 
inquiries which then occupied the public attention, than 
in detached sentences, or accidental expressions gleaned 
from the relics of distant ages. It is thus only that we 
can hope to seize the precise point of view in which an 
author's subject first presented itself to his attention, 
and to account to our own satisfaction, from the par- 
ticular aspect under which he saw it, for the subsequent 
direction which was given to his curiosity. In follow- 
ing such a plan, our object is not to detect plagiarisms, 
which we suppose men of genius to have intentionally 
concealed, but to fill up an apparent chasm in the his- 
tory of science, by laying hold of the thread which in- 
sensibly guided the mind from one station to another." 
Upon these principles, our attention is naturally direct- 
ed, on the present occasion, to the inquiries of Dr. But- 
ler, in preference to those of any other author, ancient 
or modern. At the time when Mr. Smith began his 
literary career, Butler unquestionably stood highest 
among the ethical writers of England ; and his works 
appear to have produced a still deeper and more last- 
ing impression in Scotland than in the other part of the 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 259 

island. Of the esteem in which they were held by- 
Lord Karnes and Mr. Hume, satisfactory documents 
remain in their published letters; nor were his writings 
less likely to attract the notice of Mr. Smith, in conse- 
quence of the pointed and unanswerable objections 
which they contain to some of the favorite opinions of 
his predecessor, Dr. Hutcheson. 

VI. Bv tier's Views on this Subject] The probability 
of this conjecture is confirmed by the obvious and easy 
transition which connects the theory of sympathy with 
Butler's train of thinking in his Sermon On Self-deceit. 
In order to free the mind from the influence of its arti- 
fices, experience gradually teaches us (as Butler has 
excellently shown), either to recollect the judgments we 
have formerly passed in similar circumstances on the 
conduct of others, or to state cases to ourselves, in 
which we and all our personal concerns are left entirely 
out of the question. Hence it was not an unnatural 
inference, on the first aspect of the fact, that our only 
ideas of right and wrong, with respect to our own con- 
duct, are derived from our sentiments with respect to 
the conduct of others. This, accordingly (as we have 
already seen), is the distinguishing principle of Mr. 
Smith's theory. 

I have formerly referred to a note in Butler's fifth 
Sermon, in which he has exposed the futility of 
Hobbes's definition of pity. In the same note, it is re- 
marked further by the very acute and profound author, 
that Hobbes's premises, if admitted to be sound, so far 
from establishing his favorite doctrine concerning the 
selfish nature of man, would afford an additional illus- 
tration of the provision made in his constitution for 
the establishment and maintenance of the social un- 
ion. " If there be really any such thing as the fiction 
or imagination of danger to ourselves from sight of the 
miseries of others, which Hobbes speaks of, and which 
he has absurdly mistaken for the whole of compassion, 
— if there be any thing of this sort common to man- 
kind distinct from the reflection of reason, it would be 



260 ATTXILIAEY PRINCIPLES. 

a most remarkable instance of what was farthest from 
his thoughts, namely, of a mutual sympathy between 
each particular of the species, — a fellow-feeling com- 
mon to mankind. It would not, indeed, be an instance 
of our substituting others for ourselves, but it would 
be an example of our substituting ourselves for others." 
To those who are at all acquainted with Mr. Smith's 
book, it is unnecessary for me to observe how very pre- 
cisely Butler has here touched on the general fact which 
is assumed as the basis of the Theory of Moral Sen- 
timents. 

In various other parts of Butler's writings there are 
manifest anticipations of Mr. Smith's ethical specula- 
tions. In his Sermon, for example, On Forgiveness of 
Injuries, he expresses himself thus : — " Without know- 
ing particulars, I take upon me to assure all persons 
who think they have received indignities or injurious 
treatment, that they may depend upon it, as in a man- 
ner certain, that the offence is not so great as they 
themselves imagine. We are in such a peculiar situa- 
tion, with respect to injuries done to ourselves, that we 
can scarce any more see them as they really are than 
our eye can see itself. If we could place ourselves at 
a due distance (that is, be really unprejudiced), we 
should frequently discern that to be in reality inadver- 
tence and mistake in our enemy, which we now fancy 
we see to be malice or scorn. From this proper point 
of view we should likewise, in all probability, see some- 
thing of these latter in ourselves, and most certainly a 
great deal of the former. Thus the indignity or inju- 
ry would almost infinitely lessen, and perhaps at last 
come out to be nothing at all. Self-love is a medium 
of a peculiar kind ; in these cases it magnifies every 
thing which is amiss in others, at the same time that 
it lessens every thing amiss in ourselves." 

The following passage in Butler's Sermon On Self- 
deceit is still more explicit. " It would very much pre- 
vent our being misled by this self-partiality, to reduce 
that practical rule of' our Saviour — Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them 



RIDICULE. 2*)1 

■ — to our judgment or way of thinking. This rule, you 
see, consists of two parts. One is to substitute anoth- 
er for yourseJf when you take a survey of any part of 
your behaviour, or consider what is proper and fit and 
reasonable for you to do upon any occasion ; the other 
part is, that you substitute yourself in the room of 
another, — consider yourself as the person affected by 
such a behaviour, or towards whom such an action is 
done, and then you would not only see, but likewise 
feel, the reasonableness or unreasonableness of such an 
action or behaviour." * 



Section III. 

OF THE SENSE OF THE RIDICULOUS. 

I. Objects of Ridicule.] Another auxiliary principle 
to the moral faculty yet remains to be considered, — 
the sense of ridicule, and the anxiety which all men feel 
to avoid whatever is likely to render them the objects 
of it. The subject is extremely curious and interest- 
ing ; but the time I have bestowed on the former article 
obliges me to confine myself to a very short explanation 
of the meaning of the word, and of the relation which 
the principle denoted by it bears to our nobler motives 
of action. 

The natural and proper object of ridicule is those 

* The same idea is stated with great clearness and conciseness by 
Hobbcs- " There is an easy rule to know upon a sudden, whether the 
action I be to do be against the law of nature or not. And it is but this, 
— That a man imagine himself in the place of the party ivith whom he hath to 
do, and reciprocally him in his. Which is no more but changing (as it were) 
of the scales ; for every man's passion Avcigheth heavy in his own scale, 
but not in the scale of his neighbour. And this rule is very well knovn 
and expressed in the old dictate, Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris." — 
De Corpore Politico, Chap. IV. 

It is observed by Gibbon that this golden rule of doing as we would be 
done by is to be found in a moral treatise of Isocrates. — Decline and Fall 
of tfie Roman Empire, Chap. LIV., note. 

[For other critical notices of Adam Smith's theory, see Brown's Philos' 
ophy of the Human Mind, Lcct. LXXX. and LXXXI. Cousin, Philosophic 
Morale, Seconde Partie : Ecole Ecossaise, Legons IV. - VI. Jouffroy's In- 
troduction to Ethics t Lectures XVI. -X VIII.] 



262 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

smaller improprieties in character and manners which 
do not rouse our feelings of moral indignation, or im- 
press us with a melancholy sense of human depravity. 
In the words of Aristotle, to yeXoiov, or the ridiculous, 
may be defined to be to alaxos avuftwov, the deformed with- 
out hurt or mischief, or (as he has explained his own 
meaning) " those smaller faults which are neither pain- 
ful nor pernicious, but unbeseeming" ; and "of which," 
he adds, " the proper correction is not reproach, but 
laughter" 

In stating this as a general principle with respect to 
the ridiculous, I would not be understood to assert that 
every thing which is ridiculous implies immorality, in 
the strict acceptation of that word. Ignorance, absurd- 
ity in reasoning, even a want of acquaintance with the 
established ceremonial of behaviour, often provoke our 
laughter with irresistible force. What is ridiculous, 
however, always implies some imperfection, and ex- 
poses the individual to whom it attaches to a species 
of contempt, of which (how good-humored soever) no 
man would choose to be the object. 

Perhaps, indeed, it might be found, on a more accu- 
rate analysis of this part of our constitution, that it is 
not, in such cases, merely the intellectual or physical de- 
fect which excites our ridicule, but the contrast between 
this and some moral impropriety or imperfection, which 
either conceals the defect from the individual himself, 
or induces him to attempt concealing it from others; 
and consequently, that the sentiment of ridicule always 
involves, more or less, a sentiment of moral disapproba- 
tion. One thing is certain, that intellectual and physi- 
cal imperfections never appear so ridiculous as when 
accompanied with affectation, hypocrisy, vanity, pride, 
or an obvious incongruity between the pretensions of 
an individual and the education he has received, or the 
station in which he was originally placed. 

Upon this question, however, I shall not at present 
presume to decide. It is sufficient for my purpose, if 
it be granted that nothing is ridiculous but what falls 
short, some way or other, of our ideas of excellence ; 



RIDICULE. 263 

or (as Cicero expresses it), " Locus et regio quasi ridi- 
culi, turpitudine et deformitate quadam continetur." * 

II. Final Cause of this Principle.] Hence, I think, 
may be traced a beautiful final cause in this part of our 
frame. For while it enlarges the fund of our enjoy- 
ment, by rendering the more trifling imperfections of 
our fellow-creatures a source of amusement to us, it ex- 
cites the exertions of every individual to correct those 
imperfections by which the ridicule of others is likely 
to be provoked. As our eagerness, too, to correct these 
imperfections may be presumed to be weak in propor- 
tion as we apprehend them to be, in a moral view, of 
trifling moment, we are so formed, that the painful feel- 
ings produced by ridicule are often more poignant than 
those arising from the consciousness of having rendered 
ourselves the objects of strong moral disapprobation. 
Even the consciousness of being haled by mankind is 
to the generality of men less intolerable than what the 
poet calls 

" The world's dread laugh, 
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn." 

It furnishes no objection to these observations, that 
the sense of ridicule is not always favorable to virtu- 
ous conduct ; and that it frequently tends very power- 
fully to mislead us from our duty. The same remark 
may be extended to the desire of esteem, and even to 
the moral faculty, — that they are liable to be perverted 
by education and fashion. But the great ends of our 
being are to be collected from the general scope of the 
principles "of our constitution ; not from the particular 
instances in which this scope is thwarted by adventi- 
tious circumstances ; and nothing surely can be more 
evident than this, that the three principles just men- 
tioned were all intended to cooperate together, and to 
lead to a conduct favorable to the improvement of the 
individual, and to the general interests of society. 



* De Oratore, Lib. II. 58. " The place and, as it were, province of ridi- 
cule are confined to baseness and deformity." 



264 



AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 



The sense of ridicule, in particular, although it has a 
manifest reference to such a scene of imperfection as 
we are placed in at present, is, on the whole, a most 
important auxiliary to our sense of duty, and well de- 
serves a careful examination in an analysis of the mor- 
al constitution of man. It is one of the most striking 
characteristics of the human constitution, as distin- 
guished from that of the lower animals, and has an in- 
timate connection with the highest and noblest princi- 
ples of our nature. As Milton has observed, — 

" Smiles from reason flow, 
To brutes denied " ; 

and it may be added, that they not only imply the 
power of reason, in the more limited acceptation of that 
word, as applicable to the perception of truth and false- 
hood, but the moral faculty, or that power by which we 
distinguish right from wrong. Indeed, they imply the 
power of reason (in both acceptations of the term) in 
a high state of cultivation. 

In the education of youth, there is nothing which re- 
quires more serious attention than the proper regulation 
of the sense of ridicule; nor is there any instance in 
which the legislator has it more in his power to influ- 
ence national manners, than by watching over those 
public exhibitions which avail themselves of this prin- 
ciple of human nature, as a vehicle of entertainment to 
the multitude. 

Section IV. 

OF TASTE, CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATION TO MORALS. 

I. Taste applicable to Morals.] From the explanation 
formerly given of the import of the phrases moral beau- 
ty and moral deformity, it may be easily conceived in 
what manner the character and the conduct of our fel- 
low-creatures may become subservient to the gratifica- 
tion of taste. The use which the poet makes of this 
class of our intellectual pleasures is entirely analogous 
to the resources which he borrows from the charms of 



MORAL TASTE. 265 

external nature. By skilful selections and combina- 
tions, characters more exalted and more pleasing may 
be drawn than have ever fallen under our observation ; 
and a series of events may be exhibited in perfect con- 
sonance to our moral feelings. Rewards and punish- 
ments may be distributed by the poet with an exact 
regard to the merits of individuals ; and those irregu- 
larities in the distribution of happiness and misery, 
which furnish the subject of so many complaints in 
real life, may be corrected in the world created by his 
genius. Here, too, the poet borrows from nature the 
model after which he copies, not only as he accommo- 
dates his imaginary arrangements to his unperverted 
sense of justice, but as he accommodates them to the 
general laws by which the world is governed ; for 
whatever exceptions may occur in particular cases, 
there can be no more doubt about the fact, that virtue 
is the direct road to happiness, and vice to misery, than 
that, in the material world, blemishes and defects are 
lost amid prevailing beauty and order. 

The power of moral taste, like that which has for its 
object the beauty of material forms and the various 
productions of the fine arts, requires much exercise for 
its development and culture. The one species of taste, 
also, as well as the other, is susceptible of a false re- 
finement, injurious to our own happiness, and to our 
usefulness as members of society. 

II. Dangers incident to a false Refinement of Moral 
Taste.] With this false refinement of taste is some- 
times connected the peculiar species of misanthropy 
which is grafted on a worthy and benevolent heart. 
When the standard of moral excellence we have been 
accustomed to dwell upon in imagination is greatly 
elevated above the common attainments of humanity, 
we are apt to become too difficult and fastidious (if 1 
may use the expression) in our moral taste ; or, in plain- 
er language, to become unreasonably censorious of the 
follies and vices of our contemporaries. In such cases, 
it may happen that the native benevolence of the mind, 
23 



466 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

by being habitually directed towards ideal characters, 
may prove a source of real dissatisfaction and dislike 
towards those with whom we associate. Such a dis- 
position, when carried to an extreme, not only sours 
the temper, and dries up all the springs of innocent 
comfort which nature has so liberally provided for us 
in the common incidents of life, but, by withdrawing a 
man from active pursuits, renders all his talents and 
virtues useless to society. A character of this descrip- 
tion has furnished to Moliere the subject of the most 
finished of all his dramatic pieces, and to Marmontel, 
that of one of his most agreeable and useful tales. The 
former of these is universally known as the masterpiece 
of French comedy ; but the latter possesses also an un- 
common degree of merit by the hints it suggests for 
curing the weakness in which the character originates, 
and by the interesting contrast it exhibits between the 
misanthrope of Moliere, and a man who unites inflexi- 
bility of principle with that accommodation of temper 
which is necessary for the practical exercise of virtue. 
The great nurse and cherisher of this species of mis- 
anthropy is solitary contemplation ; and the only effect 
ual remedy is society and business, together with a 
habit of directing the attention rather to the correction 
of our own faults than to a jealous and suspicious ex- 
amination of the motives which influence the conduct 
of our neighbours. 

Considered as a principle of action, a cultivated 
moral taste, while it provides an effectual security 
against the grossness necessarily connected with many 
vices, cherishes a temper of mind friendly to all that 
is amiable, or generous, or elevated in our nature. 
When separated, however, as it sometimes is, from a 
strong sense of duty, it can scarcely fail to prove a 
fallacious guide; the influence of fashion, and of other 
casual associations, tending perpetually to lead it astray. 
This is more particularly remarkable in men to whom 
the gratifications of taste in general form the principal 
object of pursuit, and whose habits of life encourage 
them to look no higher for their rule of conduct than 
the way of the world. 



MORAL TASTE. 267 

The language employed by some of the Greek phi- 
losophers in their speculations concerning the nature of 
virtue seems, on a superficial view, to imply that they 
supposed the moral faculty to be wholly resolvable into 
a sense of the beautiful ; and hence Lord Shaftesbury, 
Dr. Hutcheson, and others, have been led to adopt a 
phraseology which has the appearance of substituting 
taste, in contradistinction to reason and conscience, 
as the ultimate standard of right and wrong. 

While on this subject, I cannot help taking notice of 
a highly exceptionable passage which occurs in one of 
Mr. Burke's later publications, — a passage in which, 
after contrasting the polished and courtly manners of 
the higher orders with the coarseness and vulgarity of 
the multitude, he remarks, that among the former " vice 
itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness."* 
The fact, according to my view of things, is precisely 
the reverse ; that the malignant contagiousness of vice 
is increased tenfold by every circumstance which draws 
a veil over or disguises its native deformity. On this 
argument volumes might be written, and I sincerely 
wish that a hand could be found equal to the task. 
At present, I must content myself with recommending 
it to the serious attention of moralists, as one of the 
most important topics of practical ethics which the 
actual circumstances of this part of the world point 
out as an object of philosophical discussion. 

* At the close of the eloquent description of the queen, in his Reflections 
on the Revolution in France. 



268 FREE AGENCY. 

CHAPTER VI. 

OF MAN'S FREE AGENCY. 
Section I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

I. Marti s Free Agency has been called in question by 
Speculative Minds.] All the foregoing inquiries con- 
cerning the moral constitution of man proceed on the 
supposition, that he has a freedom of choice between 
good and evil, and that, when he deliberately performs 
an action which he knows to be wrong, he renders him- 
self justly obnoxious to punishment. That this sup- 
position is agreeable to the common apprehensions of 
mankind will not be disputed. 

From very early times, indeed, the truth of the sup- 
position has been called in question by a few specula- 
tive men, who have contended that the actions we 
perform are the necessary result of the constitution of 
our minds, operated on by the circumstances of our ex- 
ternal situation; and that what we call moral delin- 
quencies are as much a part of our destiny as the cor- 
poreal or intellectual qualities we have received from 
nature. The argument in support of this doctrine has 
been proposed in various forms, and has been frequent- 
ly urged with the confidence of demonstration* 

This question about predestination and free-will has 
furnished, in all ages and countries, inexhaustible mat- 
ter of contention, both to philosophers and divines. 
In the ancient schools of Greece it is well known how 
generally and how keenly it was agitated. Among 
the Mahometans it constitutes one of the principal 

* The rest of this chapter was thrown by the author into an appendix. 
In this edition it is inserted in its place, as being necessary to the discus- . 
Bion. Some retrenchments have been made in order to find room for the 
notes, which are intended to give some slight intimations of the present 
state of the controversy. — Ed. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 269 

points of division between the followers of Omar and 
those of Ali ; and among the ancient Jews it was the 
subject of endless dispute between the Pharisees and 
| the Sadducees. It is scarcely necessary for me to add, 
I what violent controversies it has produced, and still 
continues to produce, in the Christian world. 

II. Explanation of Terms used in this Controversy.] l 
As this controversy, like most others in metaphysics, 
has been involved in much unnecessary perplexity by 
the ambiguity of language, a few brief remarks on 
some equivocal terms connected with the question at 
issue may perhaps add something to the perspicuity 
and precision of the following reasonings. 

1. The word volition is defined by Locke to be " an 
act of the mind, knowingly exerting that dominion it 
takes itself to have over any part of the man, by em- 
ploying it in, or withholding it from, any particular ac- 
tion." * Dr. Reid defines it, more briefly, to be " the { 

. determination of the mind to do or not to do something 
which we conceive to be in our power." He remarks, 
at the same time, that " this definition is not strictly 
logical, inasmuch as the determination of the mind is 
only another term for volition. But it ought to be ob- 
served, that the most simple acts of the mind do not 
admit of being logically defined. The only way to 
form a precise notion of them is to reflect attentively 
upon them as we feel them in ourselves. Without 
this reflection, no definition can enable us to reason 
about them with correctness."! 

2. It is necessary to form a distinct notion of what 
is meant by the word volition, in order to understand 
the import of the word vrill; for this last word properly 
expresses that power of the mind of which volition is the 
act, and it is only by attending to what we experience, 
while we are conscious of the act, that we can under- 
stand any thing concerning the nature of the power. 



* Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. XXI. §15. 
t Essays on the Active Powers, Essay II. Chap. I. 

23* 



270 FREE AGENCY. 

The word will, however, is not always used in this 
its proper acceptation, but is frequently substituted for 
volition; as when I say that my hand moves in obedi- 
ence to my will. This, indeed, happens to the names 
of most of the powers of the mind, — that the same 
word is employed to express the power and the act. 
Thus imagination signifies both the power and the act 
of imagining ; abstraction signifies both the power and 
the act of abstracting ; and so in other instances. But 
although the word will may, without departing from 
the usual forms of speech, be used indiscriminately for 
the power and the act, the word volition applies only 
to the latter ; and it would undoubtedly contribute to 
the distinctness of our reasonings to restrict the sig- 
nification of the word will entirely to the former. 

It is not necessary, I apprehend, to enlarge any more 
on the meaning of these terms. It is to be learned 
only from careful reflection on what passes in our own 
minds, and to multiply words upon the subject would 
only involve it in obscurity. 

3. There is, however, a state of the mind perfectly dis- 
tinct both from the power and the act of willing, with 
which they have been frequently confounded, and of 
which it may therefore be proper to mention the char- 
acteristical marks. The state I refer to is properly 
called desire, the distinction between which and will 
was first clearly pointed out by Mr. Locke. "I find 
the will" says he, " often confounded with several of 
the affections, especially desire, and that by men who 
would not willingly be thought not to have had very 
distinct notions of things, and not to have writ very 
clearly about them/' ^ " This," he justly adds, " has 
been no small occasion of obscurity and mistake in 
this matter, and therefore is, as much as may be, to be 
avoided." The substance of his remarks on the ap- 
propriate meaning of these two terms amounts to the 
two following propositions : — 1. That at the same 
moment a man may desire one thing and will another. 
2. That at the same moment a man may have contrary 
desires, but cannot have contrary wills, The notions, 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



271 



therefore, which ought to be annexed to the words will 
and desire are essentially different. 

It will be proper, however, to state Mr. Locke's ob- 
servations in his own words : — " He that shall turn his 
thoughts inwards upon what passes in his own mind 
when he wills, shall see that the will or power of vo- 
lition is conversant about nothing but that particular 
determination of the mind whereby, barely by a thought, 
the mind endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stoo 
to any action which it takes to be in its power. This, 
well considered, plainly shows, that the will is perfectly 
distinguished from desire, which, in the very same ac- 
tion, may have a quite contrary tendency from tiiat 
which our wills set us upon. A man whom I cannot 
deny may oblige me to use persuasions to another, 
which, at the same time I am speaking, I may wish 
not to prevail on him. In this case, it is plain the will 
and desire run counter. I will the action that tends 
one way, whilst my desire tends another, and that the 
direct contrary. A man who, by a violent fit of gout 
in his limbs, finds a doziness in his head or a want 
of appetite in his stomach removed, desires to be eased 
too of the pain of his feet or hands (for wherever there 
is pain there is a desire to be rid of it) ; though yet, 
while he apprehends that the removal of the pain may 
translate the noxious humors to a more vital part, his 
will is never determined to any one action that may 
serve to remove this pain. Whence it is evident that 
desiring and willing are two distinct acts of the mind; 
and, consequently, that the will, which is but the 
power of volition, is much more distinct from de- 
sire." * 

It is surprising how little this important passage has 
been attended to by Locke's successors. 

Dr. Johnson on this, as on every other occasion where 
logical precision of ideas is called for in a definition, is 
strangely indistinct and inconsistent. Will he defines 
to be " that power by which we desire and purpose " ; 

* Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. XXI. § 30. 



272 FREE AGENCY. 

and he gives as its synonyme the scholastic word vellei* 
ty. On turning to the article velleity, we are told that 
" it is the school term used to signify the lowest degree 
of desire " ; in illustration of which Dr. South is quoted, 
according to whom "the wishing of a thing is not 
properly the willing it, but it is that which is called by 
the schools an imperfect velleity, and imports no more 
than an idle, inoperative complacency in and desire of 
the end, without any consideration of the means." 

4, Instead of speaking (according to common phrase- 
ology) of the influence of motives on the will, it would 
be much more correct to speak of the influence of mo- 
tives on the agent. We are apt to forget what the will 
is, and to consider it as something inanimate and pas- 
sive, the state of which can be altered only by the ac- 
tion of some external cause. The habitual use of the 
metaphorical word motives, to denote the intentions or 
purposes which accompany our voluntary actions, or, 
in other words, the ends which we have in view in the 
exercise of the power intrusted to us, has a strong ten- 
dency to confirm us in this error, by leading us to as- 
similate in fancy the volition of a mind to the motion 
of a body, and the circumstances which give rise to 
this volition to the vis motrix by which the motion is 
produced. 

It was probably in order to facilitate the reception of 
his favorite scheme of necessity that Hobbes was led 
to substitute, instead of the old division of our faculties 
into the powers of the understanding and those of the 
will, a new division of his own, in which the name 
of cognitive powers was given to the former, and that 
of motive powers to the latter. To familiarize the ears 
of superficial readers to this phraseology was of itself 
one great step towards securing their suffrages against 
the supposition of man's free agency. To say that the 
will is determined by motive powers, is to employ a 
language which virtually implies a recognition of the 
very point in dispute. Accordingly, Mr. Belsham is 
at pains to keep the metaphorical origin of the word 
motive in the view of his readers, by prefixing to his 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 273 

argument in favor of the scheme of necessity the fol- 
lowing definition : — " Motive, in this discussion, is to 
be understood in its most extensive sense. It ex- 
presses whatever moves or influences the mind in its 
choice." * 

5. According to Mr. Locke, the ideas of liberty and 
of power are very nearly the same. " Every one," he 
observes, " finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, 
continue or put an end to, several actions in himself. 
From the consideration of the extent of this power of 
the mind over the actions of the man, which every one 
finds in himself, arise the ideas of liberty and necessi- 
ty." And a few sentences afterwards : — " The idea of 
liberty is the idea of a power in any agent to do or 
forbear any particular action, according to the deter- 
mination or thought of the mind, whereby either of 
them is preferred to the other. Where either of them 
is not in the power of the agent, to be produced by 
him according to his volition, there he is not at liberty, 
but under necessity." f That these definitions are not 
perfectly correct will appear hereafter. They approach, 
indeed, very nearly to the definitions of liberty and 
necessity given by Hobbes, Collins, and Edwards ; 
whereas Locke, in order to do justice to his own de- 
cided opinion on the subject, ought to have included 
also in his idea of liberty a power over the determi- 
nations of his will. 

It is owing in a great measure to this close connec- 
tion between the ideas of free will and of power, and 
to the pleasure with which the consciousness of power 
is always accompanied, that we feel so painful a mor- 
tification in perusing those systems in which our free 
agency is called in question. Dr. Priestley himself, as 
well as his great oracle, Dr. Hartley, has acknowledged, 
that " he was not a ready convert to the doctrine of 
necessity, and that he gave up his liberty with great 
reluctance." \ But whence this reluctance to embrace 

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, Chap. IX. Sect. I. 

T Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. XXI. §§ 7, 8. 

% Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated, Preface. 



274 FREE AGENCY. 

a doctrine so " great and glorious," but from its repug- 
nance to the natural feelings and natural wishes of the 
human mind? 



Section II. 

REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 

I. Concessions by the Advocates for Free Will] Be- 
fore proceeding to an examination of this question, I 
shall premise a few principles in which both parties are 
agreed, or which at least appear to me to be conces- 
sions which the advocates for free will may safely make 
to their antagonists without any injury to their general 
argument. 

1. Every action is performed with some view, or, in 
other words, is performed from some motive. Dr. Reid, 
indeed, denies this with zeal, but I am doubtful if he 
has strengthened his cause by doing so ; * for he con- 
fesses that the actions which are performed without 
motives are perfectly trifling and insignificant, and not 
such as lead to any general conclusion concerning the 
merit or demerit of moral agents. I should therefore 
rather be disposed to yield this point than to dispute 
a proposition not materially connected with the ques- 
tion at issue. One thing is clear and indisputable, that 
it is only in so far as a man acts from motives or in- 
tentions, that he is entitled to the character of a ra- 
tional being. 

2. The merit of an action depends entirely on the 
motive from which it was performed. Dr. Reid re- 
marks, that some necessitarians have triumphed in 
this principle as the very hinge of the controversy, 
whereas the truth is, that no reasonable advocate for 
free will ever called it in question. 

II. General Statement of the Argument for Necessity.] 
So far, I think, we are justified in going. The great 

* Essays on the Active Powers, Essay IV. Chap. IV. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 



275 



question is, How do motives influence or determine the 
will ? In answer to this question the necessitarians 
reason as follows : — 

Every change in our nature, we are told, implies the 
operation of a cause; and this maxim, it is pretended, 
holds not only with respect to inanimate matter, but 
with respect to the changes which take place in the 
state of a mind. Every volition, therefore, must have 
been produced by a motive with which it is as necessa- 
rily connected as any other effect with its cause ; and 
when different motives are presented to the mind at the 
same time, the will yields to the strongest, as necessa- 
rily as a body urged by two contrary forces moves in 
the direction of that which is most powerful. 

The foregoing argument goes to prove, that all hu- 
man actions are as necessarily produced by motives as 
the going of a clock is necessarily produced by the 
weights, and that no human action could have been 
otherwise than it really was. Nay, it applies also in 
full force to the Deity, and indeed to all intelligent be- 
ings whatever; for it is not founded on any thing pe- 
culiar to the human mind, but on the impossibility of 
free agency ; and, of consequence, it leads to this gen- 
eral conclusion, that no event in the universe could 
have happened otherwise than it did. 

Accordingly, Dr. Clarke has been at much pains to 
prove that the Deity must be a free agent, and therefore 
that free agency is not impossible ; from which he in- 
fers that there must be some flaw in the reasonings 
just stated to prove that man is a necessary agent* 
If this reasoning of Clarke's be admitted as conclusive, 
where is the absurdity, I would ask, of supposing that 
God may have been pleased to place man in a state of 
moral discipline, by imparting to him a freedom of 
choice between good and evil, in like manner as he 
has imparted to him various other faculties and powers 
essentially different from any thing we observe in the 
lower animals? Is not the contrary assertion a pre- 

* Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, Prop. XII. 



276 FREE AGENCY. 

sumptuous attempt to set limits to the Divine Omrrip 
otence ? 

Among the various forms which religious enthusiasm 
assumes, there is a certain prostration of the mind, 
which, under the specious disguise of a deep humility, 
aims at exalting the Divine perfections by annihilat 
ing all the powers which belong to human nature. 
" Nothing is more usual for fervent devotion," says Sir 
James Mackintosh, in speaking of some theories cur- 
rent among the Hindoos, " than to dwell so long and 
so warmly on the meanness and worthlessness of 
created things, and on the all-sufficiency of the Su- 
preme Being, that it slides insensibly from comparative 
to absolute language, and, in the eagerness of its zeal 
to magnify the Deity, seems to annihilate every thing 
else." 

This excellent observation may serve to account for 
the zeal displayed by many devout men in favor of the 
scheme of necessity. " We have nothing," they fre- 
quently and justly remind us, " but what we have re- 
ceived" But the question here is simply a matter of 
fact, whether we have or have not received from God 
the gift of free will ; and the only argument, it must 
be remembered, which they have yet been able to ad- 
vance for the negative proposition is, that this gift was 
impossible even for the power of God ; — an argument, 
we may remark, which not only annihilates the power 
of man, but annihilates that of God also, and subjects 
him, as well as all his creatures, to the control of causes 
which he is unable to resist. So completely does this 
scheme defeat the pious views in which it has some- 
times originated. 

I say sometimes ; for this very argument against the 
liberty of the will is employed by Spinoza, according to 
whom the free agency of man involves the absurd sup- 
position of an imperium in imperio in the universe.* 
Voltaire, too, — who in his latter days, abandoning 
those principles for which he had before, when in the 

* Tractat. Polity Cap. II. Sect. VI. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 277 

full vigor of his faculties, so zealously and eloquently 
contended, seems to have become a convert to the 
scheme of fatalism, — has on one occasion had re- 
course to an argument against man's free agency simi- 
lar in substance to what is advanced by Spinoza in the 
passage now referred to. " En effet, il seroit bien sin- 
g'vMer que toute la nature, tous les astres obeissent a 
des loix eternelles, et qu'il y eut un petit animal haut 
de cinq pieds, qui en mepris de ces lois put agir tou- 
jours comme il lui plairoit au seul gre de son caprice." * 
" Singular ! " exclaims Dr. Beattie, after quoting the 
preceding sentence ; " ay, singular indeed, — but not a 
whit more singular than that this same animal of five 
feet should perceive, and think, and read, and write, 
and speak ; attributes which no astronomer of my ac- 
quaintance has ever supposed to belong to the planets, 
notwithstanding their brilliant appearance and stupen- 
dous magnitude." f The reply is quite as good as the 
argument is entitled to. J 

* Le Philosophe Ignorant, XIII. " Indeed, it would be very singular 
that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there 
should be a little animal, five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, 
could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice." 

f Essay on Truth, Part II. Chap. II. Sect. III. 

J In reply to the general argument for necessity founded on the theory 
of causation, I copy a few paragraphs from Tappan's Review of Edwards's 
Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will. — " Let us look at the connection of 
cause and phenomena a little more particularly. What is cause ? It is 
that which is the ground of the possible and actual existence of phenom- 
ena. How is cause known ? By the phenomena. Is cause visible ? No ; 
whatever is seen is phenomenal. We observe phenomena, and by the law 
of our intelligence we assign them to cause. But how do we conceive of 
cause as producing phenomena? By a nisus, an effort, or energy. Is 
this nisus itself a phenomenon ? It is when it is observed. Is it always ob- 
served? It is not The nisus of gravitation we do not observe; we ob- 
serve merely the facts of gravitation. The nisus of heat to consume we 
do not observe ; we observe merely the facts of combustion. Where, 
then, do we observe this nisus ? Only in will. Really, volition is the nisus 
or effort of that cause which we call will. When I wish to do any thing, 
I make an effort, a nisus, to do it ; I make an effort to raise my arm, and I 
raise it. This effort is simply the volition. I make an effort to lift a 
weight with my hand; this effort is simply the volition to lift it, and im- 
mediately antecedent to this effort I recognize only my will, or really only 
myself. This effort, this nisus, this volition, — whatever we call it, — is in 
the will itself, and it becomes a phenomenon to us because roe arc causes 
that know ourselves. Every nisus, or effort, or volition, which we may make, 

24 



278 FREE AGENCY. 

III. Hobbes*s Scheme of Necessity.] According to 
the view of the subject that has now been taken, we 
are led to conclude that man possesses a power over 
the determinations of his will ; — and this is precisely 
the scheme of what is commonly called free will, in op- 
position to that of necessity. 

But this power over the determinations of the will 
has been represented by some philosophers as an absurd- 
ity and impossibility. Liberty, we are told, consists 
only in a power to act as we will; and it is impossible 
to conceive in any being a greater liberty than this. 
Hence it follows, that liberty does not extend to the 
determinations of the will, but only to the actions conse- 
quent upon its determinations. To say that we have 

is in our consciousness : causes which are not self-conscious, of course, do 
not reveal this nisus to themselves ; and they cannot reveal it to us be- 
cause it is in the very bosom of the cause itself. What we observe in re- 
lation to all causes not ourselves, whether they be self-conscious or not, is 
not the nisus, but the sequents of the nisus. Thus in men we do not ob- 
serve the volition or nisus in their wills, but the phenomena which form the 
sequents of the nisus. And in physical causes, we do not observe the ni- 
sus of these causes, but only the phenomena Avhich form the sequents of 
this nisus. But when each one comes to himself, it is different. He pen- 
etrates himself, — knows himself. He is 1 dm self the cause; he himself 
makes the nisus, and is conscious of it ; and this nisus to him becomes an 
effect, a phenomenon, — the first phenomenon by which he reveals himself, 
but a phenomenon by which he reveals himself only to himself. It is by 
the sequents of this nisus, the effects produced in the external visible world, 
that he reveals himself to others." — pp. 190- 192. 

That our particular volitions are the effects of the general power of 
willing, and not of external motives, is plain enough. But the determina- 
tion of the general power of willing to put forth this or that particular vo- 
lition, — is not this the effect of some cause ? and if so, of what cause 1 
Let us hear Mr. Tappan again: — "Does the objector allege, as a palpa- 
ble absurdity, that there is, after all, nothing to account for the particular 
determination 1 I answer, that the particular determination is accounted 
for in the very quality or attribute of the cause. In the case of a physical 
cause, the particular determination is accounted for in the quality of the 
cause, which quality is to be necessarily correlated to the object. In the 
case of will, the particular determination is accounted for in the quality of 
the cause, which quality is to have the power to make the particular deter- 
mination without being necessarily correlated to the object. A physical 
cause is a cause fixed, determined, and necessitated. The will is a cause 
contingent and free. A physical cause is a cause instrumental of a first 
cause; — the will is first cause itself. The Infinite Will is the first cause 
inhabiting eternity, filling immensity, and unlimited in its energy. The 
human will is first cause appearing in time, confined to place, and finite in 
its energy ; but it is the same in kind, because made in the likeness of the 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 279 

power to will such an action, is to say that we may 
will it if we will. This supposes the will to be deter- 
mined by a prior will; and for the same reason, that 
will must be determined by a will prior to it, and so on 
in an infinite series of wills, which is absurd. To act 
freely, therefore, can mean nothing more than to act 
voluntarily; and this is all the liberty that can be con- 
ceived in man or in any other being. 

Agreeably to this reasoning, Hobbes defines a free 
agent to be " he that can do if he will and forbear if he 
will." The same definition has been adopted by Leib- 
nitz, by Collins, by Gravesande, by Edwards, by Bon- 
net, and by all later necessitarians. 

Dr. Priestley ascribes this peculiar notion of free will 
to Hobbes as its author ; * but it is in fact of much 

Infinite Will. As first cause it is self-moved; it makes its nisus of itself, 
and of itself it forbears to make it ; and within the sphere of its activity, 
and in relation to its objects, it has the power of selecting, by a mere arbi- 
trary act, any particular object. It is a cause all whose acts, as well as 
any particular act, considered as phenomenon demanding a cause, are ac- 
counted for in itself alone." — pp. 222, 223. 

"Acts of the will may be conceived of as analogous to intuitive or 
first truths. First truths require no demonstration ; they admit of none ; 
they form the basis of all demonstration. Acts of the will are first move- 
ments of primary causes, and as such neither require nor admit oft antecedent 
causes, to explain their action. Will is the source and basis of all other 
cause. It explains all other cause, but in itself admits of no explanation. 
It presents the primary and all-comprehending fact of power. In God, 
will is infinite, primary cause, and uncreated : in man it is finite, primary 
cause, constituted by God's creative act, but not necessitated ; for if neces- 
sitated it would not be will, — it would not be power after the likeness of 
the Divine power ; it would be mere physical or secondary cause, and com- 
prehended in the chain of natural antecedents and sequents." — p. 228. 

Jouflroy says in reference to this point : — " The law, that every motive 
in material bodies is proportioned to the moving force which produced it, 
supposes a fact; namely, the inertia of matter. To apply this law to the 
relation which subsists between the resolutions of my will, and the mo- 
tives which act upon it, is to suppose that my being, — that I, myself, 
am not a cause ; for a cavse is something which produces an act by its own 
proper power. That which is inert is not a cause ; it may receive and 
transmit an impulse, but it cannot originate it. Are we, or are we not, a 
cause ? Have we, or have we not, a power in ourselves of producing certain 
acts 1 It would seem necessary for us to decide this question, before we 
can rightly apply the law of external phenomena to internal operations." — 
Introduction to Ethics, Lecture IV. — Ed. 

* " The doctrine of philosophical necessity is in reality a modern thing ; 
not older, I believe, than Mr. Hobbes. Of the Calvinists, I believe Mr 
Jonathan Edwards to be the first. Others have followed his steps, espe« 



280 FREE AGENCY. 

older date, even among modern metaphysicians, coin- 
ciding exactly with the doctrine of those scholastic 
divines who contended for the liberty of spontaneity, in 
opposition to the liberty of indifference. It is, howev- 
er, to Hobbes that the partisans of this opinion are 
indebted for the happiest and most popular illustration 
of it that has yet been given. " I conceive," says he, 
" liberty to be rightly defined, the absence of all the im- 
pediments to action that are not contained in the nature 
and intrinsical quality of the agent. As, for example, 
the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty 
to descend by the channel of the river, because there is 
no impediment that way ; but not across, because the 
banks are impediments. And though water cannot as- 
cend, yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend, 
but the faculty or power, because the impediment is in 
the nature of the water, and intrinsical. So also we 
say, he that is tied wants the liberty to go, because the 
impediment is not in him, but in his bands ; whereas we 
say not so of him who is sick or lame, because the im- 
pediment is in himself." f 

In order to judge how far the reasoning of Hobbes is 
in this instance satisfactory, it is necessary to attend to 
the various significations of the word liberty; for the 
sense in which Hobbes has defined it is only one of its 
acceptations, and by no means the sense in which it 
ought to be employed in this controversy. 

1. Liberty is opposed to confinement of the body by 
superior force, as when a person is shut up in a prison. 
It is in this sense that Hobbes uses the word ; for he 
tells us that liberty consists only in a power to act as 



daily Mr. Toplady. But the inconsistency of his scheme with what is 
properly Calvinism appears by his dropping several of the essential parts 
of that system, and his silence with respect to others. And when the doc- 
trine of necessity shall be thoroughly understood and well considered by 
Calvinists, it will be found to militate against almost all their peculiar ten- 
ets." — Philosophical Necessity Illustrated, Sect. XIII. 

t See his treatise Of Liberty and Necessity under this head, My Opinion 
about Liberty and Necessity. Also, Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity, 
and Chance clearly stated and debated between Dr. Bramhall and Thomas 
Hobbes. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 281 

we will. And if the word had no other acceptation, 
the objection now stated would be a valid one ; for as 
the will cannot be confined by any external force, neithef 
can we with propriety ascribe to the will that species of 
libert) which is opposed to such confinement.* 

2. Liberty is opposed to the restraints on human 
conduct arising from law and government; as when 
we say, that, by entering into a political society, a man 
gives up part of his natural liberty. In this sense lib- 
erty undoubtedly extends to the determinations of the 
will; and the very obligations which are opposed to it 
proceed on the supposition that the will is free. The 
establishment of law does not abridge this freedom, 
but, on the contrary, it takes for granted that we have 



* " This is called the liberty from co-action or violence, the liberty of spon- 
taneity, — sjwntaneity, to £kovo~iov. In the present question, this species of 
liberty ought to be thrown altogether out of account : it is admitted by all 
parties; is common equally to brutes and men; is not a peculiar quality 
of the will ; and is, in fact, essential to it, for the will cannot possibly bo 
forced. The greatest spontaneity is, in fact, the greatest necessity. Thus, a 
hungry horse, who turns of necessity to food, is said, on this definition of 
liberty, to do so with freedom, because he does so spontaneously ; and, in 
general, the desire of happiness, which is the most necessary tendency, 
will, on this application of the term, be the most free. 

" I may observe, that, among others, the definition of liberty given by 
the celebrated advocate of moral freedom, Dr. Samuel Clarke, is in reality 
only that of the liberty of spontaneity, viz. : — ' The power of self-motion 
or action, which, in all animate agents, is spontaneity, is, in moral or ra- 
tional agents, what we properly call liberty.' Fifth Reply to Leibnitz, 
4§ I - 20, and First Answer to the Gentleman of Cambridge. This self-motion, 

absolutely considered, is itself necessary To live is to act, and as 

man is not free to live or not to live, so neither, absolutely speaking, is he 
free to act or not to act. As he lives, he is necessarily determined to act 
or energize, — to think and will; and all the liberty to which he can pre- 
tend is to choose between this mode of action and that. In scholastic 
language, man cannot have the liberty of exercise, though he may have the 
liberty of sj deification. The root, of his freedom is thus necessity. Nay, we 
cannot conceive otherwise even of the Deity. As we must think him as 
necessarily existent, and necessarily living, so we must think him as neces- 
sarily active Such are the conditions of human thought. It is thus suf- 
ficiently manifest t'lat Dr. Clarke's inference of the fact of moral liberty, 
from the conditions of self-activity, is incompetent. And when he says, 
1 The true, definition of liberty is the power to act? he should have recollected 
that this power is. on his own hypothesis, absolutely fatal, if it cannot but 
act. Sec his Re/narks on Collins, pp. 15, 20, 27." 

I copy the above from two notes of Sir W. Hamilton, in his edition of 
Ueid's Works. On the Active Powers, Essay IV. Chap. I. and II. — Ed. 

24* 



282 FREE AGENCY. 

it in our power to obey or to transgress ; proposing to 
us, on the one hand, the motives of duty and of interest, 
and setting before us, on the other, the consequences 
of wilful transgression. 

3. Liberty is opposed to necessity ; and it is in this 
sense the word is employed, when we say that man is 
a free and accountable being, and that the connection 
between motives and actions is not a necessary con- 
nection, like that between cause and effect. This 
species of liberty has been called by some moral lib- 
erty. 

That there is nothing inconceivable in this idea ap- 
pears, I hope, sufficiently from what has been already 
said. And indeed it is so far from being a metaphysi- 
cal refinement or subtilty, that the common sense of 
mankind pronounces men to be accountable for their 
conduct only in so far as they are understood to be 
morally free. Whence is it that we consider the pain 
of the rack as an alleviation of the falsehoods extorted 
from the criminal ? Plainly because the motives pre- 
sented to him are supposed to be such as no ordinary 
degree of self-command is able to resist. And if we 
were only satisfied that these motives were perfectly 
irresistible, we would not ascribe to him any guilt at 
all. 

As an additional confirmation of Hobbes's doctrine, 
it has been urged that human laws require no more to 
constitute a crime but that it be voluntary ; and hence 
it has been inferred, that the criminality consists in the 
determination of the will, whether that determination 
be free or necessary. 

The case just referred to affords a sufficient refutation 
of this argument. The confession of the criminal is 
surely voluntary, in the strict acceptation of that term ; 
and yet we consider his guilt as alleviated in the same 
proportion in which we suppose his moral liberty to be 
abridged. 

It is true that in most cases human laws require no 
more to constitute a crime than that it be voluntary ; 
because, in general, motives are placed beyond the cog- 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 283 

nizance of earthly tribunals. But, in a moral view, 
merit and demerit suppose not only actions to be vol- 
untary, but the agent to be possessed of moral liberty. 
And even earthly tribunals judge on the same princi- 
ple, wherever it can be made to appear that the person 
accused was deprived of the power of self-government 
by insanity, or by some accidental paroxysm of passion. 

I shall mention, in this connection, only one other 
argument in favor of the scheme of necessity ; and I 
have reserved for it the last place, as it has been pro- 
posed with all the confidence of mathematical demon- 
stration by a writer of no less note than Mr. Belsham. 
It is in the form of a reductio ad absurdum ; and its 
more immediate object is to expose to ridicule the con- 
sequences which necessarily flow from the doctrine of 
free will. 

The argument is this : — " According to the hypothe- 
sis of free will, the essence of virtue and vice consists 
in liberty ; for example, benevolence without liberty is 
no virtue : malignity without liberty is no vice. Both 
are equally in a neutral state. Add a portion of lib- 
erty to both, benevolence instantly becomes an eminent 
virtue, and malignity an odious vice. That is, if to 

EQUALS YOU ADD EQUALS, THE WHOLES WILL BE UN- 
EQUAL ; than which nothing can be more absurd." * 

On this reasoning, to which it would be unjust to 
deny the merit of complete originality, I have no com- 
ment to offer. I have quoted it chiefly as a specimen 
of the logical and mathematical skill of the present 
advocates for the doctrine of philosophical necessity. 
In this point of view, it forms an amusing contrast to 
the lofty pretensions of a. sect which prides itself, not 
only on its superiority to vulgar prejudices, but on its 
sagacity in detecting a fraud so successfully practised 
on the rest of mankind by the Author of their moral 
constitution. 

IV. Argument of Leibnitz for Necessity.] It is well 

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Chap. IX. Sect. V. 



284 FREE AGENCY. 

known to all who have any acquaintance with the 
history of modern philosophy, that one of the funda- 
mental principles of the Leibnitzian system is, that 
" nothing exists without a sufficient reason why it should 
be so, and not otherwise." Of this principle the fol- 
lowing succinct account is given by Leibnitz himself, 
in his controversial correspondence with Dr. Clarke : — 
" The great foundation of mathematics is the principle 
of contradiction or identity ; that is, that a proposition 
cannot be true and false at the same time. But in 
order to proceed from mathematics to natural philoso- 
phy, another principle is requisite (as I have observed 
in my Theodicy), I mean the principle of the sufficient 
reason; or, in other words, that nothing happens with- 
out a reason why it should be so rather than otherwise. 
And accordingly, Archimedes was obliged, in his book 
De JEquilibriOy to take for granted, that, if there be a 
balance in which every thing is alike on both sides, and 
if equal weights are hung on the two ends of that bal- 
ance, the whole will be at rest. It is because no reason 
can be given why one side should weigh down rather 
than the other. Now by this single principle of the 
sufficient reason may be demonstrated the being of a 
God, and all the other parts of metaphysics or natural 
theology ; and even in some measure those physical 
truths that are independent upon mathematics, such as 
the dynamical principles, or the principles of force." * 

Some of the inferences deduced by Leibnitz from 
this almost gratuitous assumption are so paradoxical, 
that one cannot help wondering he was not staggered 
about its certainty. Not only was he led to conclude 
that the mind is necessarily determined in all its elec- 
tions by the greatest apparent good, insomuch that it 
would be impossible for it to make a choice between 
two things perfectly alike ; but he had the boldness to 
extend this conclusion to the Deity, and to assert, that 



* Collection of Papers vjhich passed between Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. Clarkz, 
Leibnitz's Second Paper. For a full statement of Leibnitz's views on this 
and kindred questions, see his Essais de Thiodicte. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 285 

two things perfectly alike could not have been pro- 
duced even by Divine power. It was upon this ground 
that he rejected a vacuum, because all the parts of it 
would be perfectly like to each other ; and that he also 
rejected the supposition of atoms, or similar particles 
of matter, and ascribed to each particle a monad, or 
active principle, by which it is discriminated from every 
other particle. The application of his principle, how- 
ever, on which he evidently valued himself the most, 
was that to which I have already alluded, — the de- 
monstrative evidence with which he conceived it to 
establish the impossibility of free agency, not only in 
man, but in any other intelligent being. 

Let us examine, therefore, Leibnitz's principle as ap- 
plicable to the determinations of the will, and consider 
what it implies, and how far it is agreeable to fact. And 
for this purpose it is necessary to attend to the various 
senses in which it may be understood. 

1. When it is said, that for every voluntary action 
there must have been a sufficient reason, the proposi- 
tion may be understood merely to imply, that every 
such action must have had a cause. And we may re- 
mark by the way, that this is the only interpretation of 
which the proposition admits, if the word reason be 
used in the same sense in which alone Leibnitz's max- 
im is applicable to inanimate matter. But in this sense 
of the proposition it does not at all affect the question 
about liberty and necessity ; for it only implies that the 
action is an effect, which either proceeded from the 
free will of the agent (in which case he may justly be 
said to be the cause of the effect), or which did not 
proceed from his free will (in which case it must ulti- 
mately be referred to some other cause). 

2. The principle of the sufficient reason, when ap- 
plied to our voluntary actions, may be understood to 
imply, that the will is necessarily determined by the 
greatest apparent good. As this proposition is not pe- 
culiar to the system of Leibnitz, it may be proper to 
state it more fully. 

The circumstances of our external situation, it haa 



286 FREE AGENCY. 

been said, and the state of our appetites, desires, &c, 
at any particular time, evidently do not depend on us. 
Suppose, then, that I am under the influence of any 
two active principles which urge me in different direc- 
tions, and that I deliberate which of them I am to obey. 
The conclusion my understanding forms on this subject 
does not depend on me, and this conclusion necessarily 
determines my will ; for it is impossible for a man not 
to do what appears to him to be, on the whole, the best 
and most eligible thing at the moment. My will, there- 
fore, in every case, depends as little on myself as the 
conclusion of my understanding when I give my assent 
to a mathematical demonstration. 

The flaw of this reasoning, I apprehend, lies in that 
step in which it is affirmed that the will is necessarily 
determined by what appears to us to be best and most 
eligible at the moment; — and the only circumstance 
which gives the proposition the smallest degree of plau- 
sibility is the ambiguity of the language in which it is 
stated. For it may either imply that our volitions are 
necessarily agreeable to what we will at the time ; in 
which case we only assert an identical proposition : or 
that the will is necessarily determined by what appears 
to us to be morally best and really most eligible at the 
time ; in which case we assert what is contrary to fact. 

3. The meaning of the proposition now under con- 
sideration may be understood to be this, — that for 
every action there must be a motive. 

I have already said that in this sense I am disposed 
to admit the maxim. Dr. Reid, indeed, has very con- 
fidently maintained the negative; but I do not think 
(as I formerly observed), that by doing so he has 
strengthened his cause ; for he confesses that the ac- 
tions which are performed without motives are per- 
fectly trifling and insignificant: nay, he acknowledges 
that the merit of an action depends entirely on the mo- 
tive from which it is performed. 

But although we grant this general proposition, it 
certainly does not follow from it that man is a neces- 
sary agent. The question is not concerning the 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 287 

ence of motives, but concerning the nature of that in- 
fluence. The advocates for necessity represent it as 
the influence of a cause in producing its effect. The 
advocates for liberty acknowledge that the motive is 
the occasion of acting, or the reason for acting ; but 
contend that it is so far from being the efficient cause 
of it, that it supposes the efficiency to exist elsewhere, 
namely, in the mind of the agent. Between these two 
opinions there is an essential distinction. The one 
represents man merely as a passive instrument. Ac- 
cording to the other, he is really an agent, and the sole 
author of his own actions. He acts, indeed, from mo- 
tives, but he has the power of choice among different 
ones. When he acts from a particular motive, it is not 
because this motive is stronger than others, but because 
he willed to act in this way. Indeed, it may be ques- 
tioned if the word strength conveys any idea when ap- 
plied to motives. It is obviously an analogical or met- 
aphorical expression, borrowed from a class of phe- 
nomena essentially different.* 



* " It is the strongest motive, say they, which determines the will. 
What is this strongest motive, I ask, and how do you measure the com- 
parative force of motives ? Is that the strongest motive, according to your 
idea, which determines the volition 1 If this is so, you are arguing in a 
circle ; and instead of showing that it is the strongest motive which de- 
cides the will, you are merely saying that, as the determination of the 
will is in conformity with such or such a motive, therefore this motive is 
strongest. 

" But, if we cannot judge from effect, we must find some common measure 
by which to decide. Let us inquire, then, what this measure can be. 

" Of two impulses, manifestly unequal, it would be easy to determine 
the stronger 5 a vehement desire is distinguishable in our consciousness 
from one not so. And thus, merely from their vivacity and fervor, we 
may often recognize the stronger from the weaker passion. There is, 
then, if you choose to say so, a common measure between different im- 
pulses of our sensitive nature, which are peculiarly distinguished as emo- 
tions. On the other hand, of different courses of conduct which reason 
and self-interest bring into contrast, I may see that one is much more ad- 
vantageous than another. There is, then, if you please, a means of com- 
paring together different suggestions of self-interest : the suggestion which 
promises the most for my interest should have the most power over me. 
In the same way, among different duties which may present themselves to 
my judgment, there may be one which appears more obligatory than an- 
other ; for there are duties of different degrees of importance, and in many 
cases I must sacrifice the less to the greater. I perceive, then, that, strictly 



288 FREE AGENCY. 

V. Scheme of Necessity advocated by Collins and Ed* 
wards.] The ablest defenders of free wil] have con- 
tended that the doctrine of necessity, when pushed to 
its logical consequences, must ultimately terminate in 
Spinozism. It seems to have been the great aim of 
Collins to vindicate his favorite scheme from this re- 
proach, and to retaliate upon the partisans of free will 
the charge of favoring atheism and immorality. In 
proof of this, I have only to quote the account given 
by the author himself of the plan of his work. 

" Too much care cannot be taken to prevent being 
misunderstood and prejudged in handling questions of 
such nice speculation as those of liberty and necessity ; 
and therefore, though I might in justice expect to be 
read before any judgment be passed on me, I think it 
proper to premise the following observations : — 

speaking, there is a possibility of comparing together the relative force of 
different motives originating from duty, and of different motives "suggested 
by self-interest, or, finally, of different desires striving within me at a given 
moment. But between a desire on the one hand, and a conception of in- 
terest or of duty on the other, where, I ask, can you find a standard of com- 
parison 1 If I assume passion as the measure, then, evidently, passion will 
appear the stronger motive ; but if, on the other hand, I assume interest or 
duty as the measure, then desire becomes nothing, and duty or interest all 
in all. It depends, then, wholly upon the measure of comparison which 
I adopt, whether this or the other motive is strongest ; which proves that 
there is no common measure of comparison to be applied at all times to these 
different kinds of motives, when we would estimate their relative force. 

" Thus, in truth, in almost every case, to say that we yield to the strong- 
est motive is to say what has no meaning ; for in most cases it is impossi- 
ble to determine the strongest motive. If I will to be prudent, I follow 
the motive of self-interest ; if I will to be virtuous, I follow the motive of 
duty ; if I will to be neither prudent, nor virtuous, I follow passion ; and 
in proportion as I yield to passion, to enlightened interest, or to duty, does 
the merit of my conduct vary. And here is a marvel for the advocate of 
necessity, and something which, in the sincerity of his conviction, he should 
ponder well. I, who am not free, — who, whatever resolution I have taken, 
have yet been fatally determined to take it by the strongest motive, — I 
feel that I am responsible for this resolution ; and others, too, regard me 
as responsible; so that, according as I have been impelled to this or that 
act, do I believe myself to have merit or demerit, and pass sentence on 
myself as reasonable or unreasonable, prudent or foolish ; and, in a word, 
apply to myself, though I have yielded necessarily to the strongest motive, 
certain expressions and names, all implying most decisively and forcibly 
that I was free to yield or resist, to take at my option this or that course, 
and, consequently, that this so-called strongest motive did not, after all, de» 
termine the act." — Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lect. IV. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 289 

" First, though I deny liberty in a certain meaning 
of that word, yet I contend for liberty, as it signifies a 
power in man to do as he wills or pleases. 

" Secondly, when I affirm necessity, I contend only 
for moral necessity, meaning thereby that man, who is 
an intelligent and sensible being, is determined by his 
reason and his senses ; and I deny man to be subject 
to such necessity as is in clocks, watches, and such oth- 
er beings, which, for want of sensation and intelligence, 
are subject to an absolute, physical, or mechanical neces- 
sity. 

" Thirdly, I have undertaken to show that the notions 
I advance are so far from being inconsistent with, that 
they are the sole foundations of, morality and laws, 
and of rewards and punishments in society; and that 
the notions I explode are subversive of them." * 

In the prosecution of his argument on this question, 
Collins endeavours to show that man is a necessary 
agent : — 1. From experience. By experience he means 
our own consciousness that we are necessary agents. 
2. From the impossibility of liberty. 3. From the 
consideration of the Divine prescience. 4. From the 
nature and use of rewards and punishments. And, 5. 
From the nature of morality. 

Tn this view of the subject, and indeed in the very 
selection of his premises, it is remarkable how com- 
pletely Collins has anticipated Dr. Jonathan Edwards, 
the most celebrated and indisputably the ablest cham- 
pion, in later times, of the scheme of necessity. The 
coincidence is so perfect, that the outline given by the 
former of the plan of his work might have served with 
equal propriety as a preface to that of the latter. From 
the above-mentioned summary of the argument, and 
still more from the whole tenor of the Philosophical In- 
quiry, it is evident that Collins (one of the most obnox- 
ious writers of his day to divines of all denominations^ 
was not less solicitous than his successor, Edwards, to 
reconcile his metaphysical notions with man's account- 

* Philosophical Inquiry concerning Hainan Liberty, Preface. 

25 



290 FREE AGENCY. 

ableness and moral agency. The remarks, according- 
ly, of Clarke upon Collins's work are equally applicable 
to that of Edwards. It is to be regretted that they 
seem never to have fallen into the hands of this very 
acute and candid reasoner.* As for Collins, it is a re- 



* Remarks upon a Book entitled A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human 
Liberty. Voltaire, who in all probability never read either Clarke or Col- 
lins, has said that the former replied to the latter only by theological rea- 
sonings ; — " Clarke n'a repondu a Collins qu'en theologien." (Quest sur 
FEncyc, Art. LibertS.) Nothing can be more remote from the truth. The 
argument of Clarke is wholly metaphysical, whereas his antagonist in vari- 
ous instances has attempted, though an avowed deist, to wrest to his own 
purposes the words of Scripture. 

[For a full and elaborate answer to Edwards, see Mr. Tappan's Review, 
from which a long quotation has already been given, directed against one 
of his leading positions. We give another, on the distinction, so much in- 
sisted on by Edwards, and essential, indeed, to his scheme, between moral 
and natural inability. 

"Man, they say, is morally unable to do good, and naturally able to 
do good, and therefore he can justly be made the subject of command, ap- 
peal, rebuke, and exhortation. Natural inability, as defined by this system, 
lies in the connection between the volition, considered as an antecedent, 
and the effect required. Thus I am naturally unable to walk, when, al- 
though I make the volition, my limbs, through weakness or disease, do not 
obey. Any defect in the powers or instrumentalities dependent for activity 
upon volition, or any impediment which volition cannot surmount, consti- 
tutes natural inability. According to this system, I am not held responsi- 
ble for any thing which, through natural inability, cannot be accomplished, 
although the volition is made. But let us suppose that there is no defect 
in the powers or instrumentalities dependent for activity upon volition, 
and no impediment which volition cannot surmount, so that there need be 
only a volition in order to have the effect, and then the natural ability is 
complete : — I will to walk, and I walk. Now it is affirmed that a man 
is fairly responsible for the doing of any thing, and can be fairly urged to 
do it, when, as in this case, all that is necessary for the doing of it is a vo- 
lition, although there may be a moral inability to the volition itself. 

" Nothing, it seems to me, can be more absurd than this distinction. If 
it be granted to be absurd to urge men to do right when they are conceived 
to be totally unable to do right, it is equally so when they are conceived to 
have only a natural ability to do right ; because this natural ability is of no 
avail without a corresponding moral ability. If the volition take place, 
there is, indeed, nothing to prevent the action ; nay, ' the very willing is the 
doing of it ' : but then the volition, as an effect, cannot take place without 
a cause ; and to acknowledge a moral inability is nothing less than to ac- 
knowledge that there is no cause to produce the required volition. The 
inability, under both representations, is a total inability. In the utter im- 
possibility of a right volition is the utter impossibility of any good deed. 
When we have denied liberty in denying a self-determining power, these 
definitions, in order to make out a quasi liberty and ability, are nothing bul 
ingenious folly and plausible deception. 

" You tell the man, indeed, that he can if he will; and when he replies, 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 291 

markable circumstance, that he attempted no reply to 
this tract of Clarke's, although he lived twelve years af- 
ter its publication. The reasonings contained in it, to- 
gether with those on the same subject in his correspon- 
dence with Leibnitz, and in his Demonstration of the 
Being and Attributes of God, form, in my humble opin- 

that on your principles the required volition is impossible, you refer him to 
the common notions of mankind. According to these, you say, a man is 
guilty when he forbears to do right, since nothing is wanting to right-doing 
but a volition, and guilty when he does wrong, because he wills to do 
wrong. According to these common notions, too, a man may fairly be 
persuaded to do right, when nothing is wanting but a will to do right- 
But do we find this distinction of natural and moral ability in the common 
notions of men 1 When nothing is required to the performance of a deed 
but a volition, do men conceive of any inability whatever ? Do they not feel 
that the volition has a metaphysical possibility, as well as that the sequent 
of the volition has a physical possibility ? " — pp. 161-165. 

We copy the following passage from Blakey's History of the Philosophy 
of Mind, Vol. IV. p. 515, as giving one of the latest European estimates 
of Dr. Edwards's merits as a philosopher : — " Dr. Edwards had a peculiar- 
ly constituted mind ; — a mind capable of pursuing, with incomparable 
steadiness and clearness, the longest and most intricate chain of reasoning; 
but a mind, withal, by no means endowed with the loftiest powers of logi- 
cal comprehension. He saw every link in a chain of reasoning with a mi- 
croscopic eye, which, when its focal power was changed, made every thing 
at a distance appear hazy, clouded, and ill-defined. He could do one thing 
as no other man has ever been able to do it ; he could reason from given 
or assumed premises with perspicuity, neatness, and power, and with an al- 
most superhuman ease and correctness ; but he could not embrace a phil- 
osophical system as a whole, and show its manifold bearings and rela- 
tions to other branches of knowledge. He was an acute, but not a great, 
philosopher. His was a vivid and piercing light, but its illuminating rays, 
at a certain distance, became limited and scattered, and gave to all sur- 
rounding objects a disturbed and confused appearance. His ratiocination 
is so perfect of its kind, that it assumes the appearance of mechanism ; 
and we feel a sort of secret dislike to have all the pegs and wires of an 
argument so minutely and obtrusively placed before us. Edwards has, in 
fact, been denominated a 'reasoning machine'; and the epithet is by no 
means misapplied or extravagant. But as a machine can only do its work 
one way, and we cannot humor it, or make its power more pliable, so in 
like manner do we find the intellectual mechanism of Edwards unyielding 
and unmanageable, except in its own peculiar fashion." 

With an inconsistency by no means uncommon, Blakey, in his notice 
of Collins, quotes with approbation what Stewart says above of Collins as 
anticipating Edwards in every thing, and afterwards, in his notice of Ed- 
wards, says of the latter, that " he has stated and illustrated the principle 
of necessary connection in a manner altogether different from the way in 
which Collins, Priestley, Hume, and others have argued it." 

See, also, an Essay on the Genius and Writinqs of Edwards, prefixed to 
the London edition of his works, 1834. by II. Rogers ; and I. Taylor's In- 
troduction to his edition of Edwards On the Will.] 



292 FREE AGENCY. 

ion, the most important, as well as powerful, of all his 
metaphysical arguments. The adversaries with whom 
he had to contend were both of them eminently distin- 
guished by ingenuity and subtilty, and he seems to 
have put forth to the utmost his logical strength, in con- 
tending with such antagonists. " The liberty or moral 
agency of .man," says his friend, Dr. Hoadly, " was a 
darling point to him. He excelled always, and showed 
a superiority to all, whenever it came into private dis- 
course or public debate. But he never more excelled 
than when he was pressed with the strength Leib- 
nitz was master of; which made him exert all his tal- 
ents to set it once again in a clear light, to guard it 
against the evil of metaphysical obscurities, and to 
give the finishing stroke to a subject which must ever 
be the foundation of morality in man, and is the 
ground of the accountableness of intelligent creatures 
for all their actions." 

To the arguments of Collins against man's free agen- 
cy some of his followers have added the inconsistency 
of this doctrine with the known effects of education 
(under which phrase they comprehend also the moral 
effects of all the external circumstances in which men 
are involuntarily placed) in forming the characters of 
individuals. 

The plausibility of this argument (on which so 
much stress has been laid by Priestley and others), aris- 
es entirely from the mixture of truth which it involves ; 
or, to express myself more correctly, from the evidence 
and importance of the fact on which it proceeds, when 
that fact is stated with due limitations. 

That the influence of education, in this comprehen- 
sive sense of the word, was greatly underrated by our 
ancestors is now universally acknowledged, and it is to 
Locke's writings, more than to any other single cause, 
that the change in public opinion on this head is to be 
ascribed. On various occasions he has expressed him- 
self very strongly with respect to the extent of this in- 
fluence, and has more than once intimated his belief, 
that the great majority of men continue through life 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 



293 



what early education has made them. In making use, 
however, of this strong language, his object (as is evi- 
dent from the opinions which he has avowed in other 
parts of his works) was only to arrest the attention of 
his readers to the practical lessons he was anxious to 
inculcate ; and not to state a metaphysical fact, which 
was to be literally and rigorously interpreted in the 
controversy about liberty and necessity. The only 
sound and useful moral to be drawn from the spirit of 
his observation is the duty of gratitude to Heaven for 
all the blessings, in respect of education and of exter- 
nal situation, which have fallen to our own lot; the im- 
possibility of ascertaining the involuntary misfortunes 
by which the seeming demerits of others may have 
been in part occasioned, and in the same proportion di- 
minished ; and the consequent obligation upon our- 
selves to think as charitably as possible of their con- 
duct under the most unfavorable appearances. The 
truth of all this I conceive to be implied in these words 
of Scripture, — "To whom much is given, of them 
much will be required " ; and, if possible, still more ex- 
plicitly and impressively in the Parable of the Talents. 
Is not the use which has been made by necessitari- 
ans of Locke's Treatise on Education, and other books 
of a similar tendency, only one instance more of that 
disposition, so common among metaphysical sciolists, 
to conceal from the world their incapacity to add to the 
stock of useful knowledge, by appropriating to them- 
selves the conclusions of their wiser and more sober 
predecessors, under the startling and imposing disguise 
of universal maxims, admitting neither of exception 
nor restriction ? It is thus that Locke's judicious and 
refined remarks on the association of ideas have been 
exaggerated to such an extreme by Hartley and Priest- 
iey, as to bring among cautious inquirers some degree 
of discredit on one of the most important doctrines of 
modern philosophy. Or, to take another case still more 
in point, it is thus that Locke's reflections on the effects 
of education in modifying the intellectual faculties, and 
(where skilfully conducted) in supplying their original 



294 FREE AGENCY. 

defects, have been distorted into the puerile paradox of 
Helvetius, that the mental capacities of the whole hu- 
man race are the same at the moment of birth. It is 
sufficient for me here to throw out these hints, which 
will be found to apply equally to a large proportion of 
other theories started by modern metaphysicians. 

VI. Ground taken by later Advocates of Necessity.] 
It is needless to say, that neither Leibnitz nor Collins 
admitted the fairness of the inferences which Clarke 
conceived to follow from the scheme of necessity. But 
almost every page in the subsequent history of this con- 
troversy may be regarded as an additional illustration 
of the soundness of Clarke's reasonings, and of the sa- 
gacity with which he anticipated the fatal errors likely 
to ensue from the system which he opposed. 

A very learned and pious disciple of Leibnitz, who 
made his first appearance as an author about thirty 
years after the death of his master, exclaims, — " Thus 
the same chain embraces the physical and moral worlds, 
binds the past to the present, the present to the future, 
the future to eternity. 

" That wisdom which has ordained the existence of 
this chain has doubtless willed that of every link of 
which it is composed. A Caligula is one of those 
links, and this link is of iron. A Marcus Aurelius is 
another link, and this link is of gold. Both are neces- 
sary parts of one whole, which could not but exist. 
Shall God, then, be angry at the sight of the iron link ? 
What absurdity ! God esteems this link at its proper 
value: he sees it in its cause, and he approves this 
cause, for it is good. God beholds moral monsters as 
he beholds physical monsters. Happy is the link of 
gold ! Still more happy if he know that he is only for- 
tunate. [Heureux le chainon d'or ! Plus heureux en- 
core, s'il sait qu'il n'est qu' heureux*] He has attained 
the highest degree of moral perfection, and is neverthe- 
less without pride, knowing that what he is is the ne- 
cessary result of the place which he must occupy in the 
chain. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 295 

" The Gospel is the allegorical exposition of this sys- 
tem ; the simile of the potter is its summary." * 

In what essential respect does this system differ from 
that of Spinoza ? Is it not even more dangerous in its 
practical tendency, in consequence of the high strain of 
mystical devotion by which it is exalted ? 

This objection, however, does not apply to the quo- 
tations which follow. They exhibit, without any col- 
oring of imagination or of enthusiasm, the scheme of 
necessity pushed to the remotest and most alarming 
conclusions which it appeared to Clarke to involve ; 
and, as they express the serious and avowed creed of 
two of our contemporaries (both of thern men of dis- 
tinguished talents), may be regarded as a proof that 
the zeal displayed by Clarke against the metaphysical 
principles which led ultimately to such results was not 
so unfounded as some worthy and able inquirers have 
supposed. 

" All that is must be," says the Baron de Grimm, ad- 
dressing himself to the Duke of Saxe Gotha, — " all 
that is must be, even because it is ; this is the only 
sound philosophy ; as long as we do not know this uni- 
verse a priori (as they say in the schools), all is ne- 
cessity. Liberty is a word without meaning, as you 
will see in the letter of M. Diderot." 

The following passage is extracted from Diderot's 
letter here referred to. 

" I am now, my dear friend, going to quit the tone of 
a preacher, to take, if I can, that of a philosopher. Ex- 
amine it narrowly, and you will see that the word lib- 
erty is a word devoid of meaning ; that there are not, 
and that there cannot be, free beings ; that we are only 
what accords with the general order, with our organi- 
zation, our education, and the chain of events. These 
dispose of us invincibly. "We can no more conceive of 
a being acting without a motive, than we can of one of 
the arms of a balance acting without a weight. The 
motive is always exterior and foreign, fastened upon us 

* Bonnet, Principes Philosophiques, Part VIII. Chap. VII. 



296 FREE AGENCY. 

by some cause distinct from ourselves. What deceives 
us is the prodigious variety of our actions, joined to 
the habit, which we catch at our birth, of confounding 
the voluntary and the free. We have been so often 
praised and blamed, and have so often praised and 
blamed others, that we contract an inveterate prejudice 
of believing that we and they will and act freely. But 
if there is no liberty, there is no action that merits either 
praise or blame ; neither vice nor virtue ; nothing that 
ought either to be rewarded or punished. What, then, 
is the distinction among men? The doing of good 
and the doing of ill ! The doer of ill is one who must 
be destroyed or punished. The doer of good is lucky, 
not virtuous. But though neither the doer of good nor 
of ill be free, man is nevertheless a being to be modi- 
fied ; it is for this reason the doer of ill should be de- 
stroyed upon the scaffold. From thence the good effects 
of education, of pleasure, of grief, of grandeur, of pov- 
erty, &c. ; from thence a philosophy full of pity, strong- 
ly attached to the good, nor more angry with the wicked 
than with the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with dust. 
Strictly speaking, there is but one sort of causes, that 
is, physical causes. There is but one sort of necessity, 
which is the same for all beings. This is what recon- 
ciles me to human kind ; it is for this reason I exhort 
you to philanthropy. Adopt these principles if you 
think them good, or show me that they are bad. If 
you adopt them they will reconcile you, too, with oth- 
ers and with yourself ; you will neither be pleased nor 
angry with yourself for being what you are. Reproach 
others for nothing, and repent of nothing ; this is the 
first step to wisdom. Besides this, all is prejudice and 
false philosophy." * 

Substantially the same doctrines have been recently 
introduced into this country, and I have no doubt with 
good intentions, by a very different class of philoso- 
phers, the greater part of whom have labored hard to 

* Correspondance Litteraire, Philosophique et Critique, Tom. II. pp. 5Q 
60, et seq. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 297 

dispute the connection between the premises and some 
of the conclusions. Not so Mr. Belsham. " Remorse" 
says he, " is the exquisitely painful feeling which arises 
from the belief, that, in circumstances precisely the 
same, we might have chosen and acted differently. 
This fallacious feeling is superseded by the doctrine of 
necessity." And again, — " The doctrine of philosoph- 
ical necessity supersedes remorse, so far as remorse is 
founded upon the belief, that, in the same previous cir- 
cumstances, it was possible to have acted otherwise." 

In another part of Mr. Belsham's work the following 
observation occurs : — " Remorse supposes free will. It 
arises from forgetfulness of the precise state of mind 
when the action was performed. It is of little or no 
use in moral discipline. In a degree it is even perni- 
cious." As to our moral sentiments concerning the 
conduct and character of our fellow-creatures, Mr. Bel- 
sham is of opinion that the doctrine of necessity con- 
ciliates good-will to men. " By teaching us to look up 
to God as the prime agent, and the proper cause of every 
thing that happens, ■and to regard men as nothing more 
than instruments which he employs for accomplishing 
his good pleasure, it tends to suppress all resentment, 
malice, and revenge ; while it induces us to regard our 
worst enemies with compassion rather than with hatred, 
and to return good for evil." * 

From these extracts it appears that Mr. Belsham is 
not only himself convinced of the truth of the doctrine 
of necessity, considered as a philosophical dogma, but 
that he conceives it would be for the advantage of the 
world if all mankind were to become converts to his 
way of thinking. In this respect his system is certain- 
ly much more of a piece than that of Lord Karnes, 
who, although he adopts zealously the doctrine of ne- 
cessity, and represents the argument in support of it as 

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, pp. 284, 307, 316, 406. " The 
doctrine of necessity," says Dr. Hartley, "has a tendency to abate all re- 
sentment against men. Since all they do against us is by the appointment 
of God, it is rebellion against him to be offended with them." Observa- 
tions on Man, Part I., Conclusion. 



298 FREE AGENCY. 

demonstrative, yet candidly acknowledges that our nat- 
ural feelings are adverse to that doctrine; and even 
goes so far as to say, that, without such a feeling, the 
business of society could not be carried on. In this 
dilemma he attempts to reconcile the two opinions, by 
the supposition of a deceitful sense of liberty. We are 
so formed as to believe that we are free agents, when 
in truth we are mere machines, acting only so far as we 
are acted upon. 

Perhaps no opinion on the subject of necessity was 
ever offered to the public which excited more general 
opposition than this hypothesis of a deceitful sense; 
and yet, if the argument for necessity be admitted, I 
do not see any other supposition which can possibly 
reconcile the conclusions of our reason with the feel- 
ings of which every man is conscious. Not that I 
would insinuate any apology for a doctrine, the ab- 
surdity of which is not only obvious, but ludicrous, in- 
asmuch as it involves the supposition that the Deity 
intended that his creatures should believe themselves 
to be free agents ; and that, while the great mass of 
mankind were thus deceived to their own advantage, a 
few minds of a superior order had the metaphysical 
sagacity to detect the imposition. Nor is this all. If the 
doctrine of necessity be just, it must one day or an- 
other become the universal and popular creed of man- 
kind, as every doctrine which is true, and more espe- 
cially every doctrine which is supported by demonstra- 
tive evidence, may be expected to become in the prog- 
ress of human reason. What will then become of the 
great concerns of human life ? Will man, as he im- 
proves in knowledge, be unfitted for the ends of his 
being, and exhibit an inconsistency between his reason- 
ing faculties and his active principles, contrary to the 
invariable analogy of that systematical and harmonious 
design which is everywhere else so conspicuous in the 
works of nature ? * 

* This argument is very ably and forcibly stated in a small pamphlet 
on liberty and necessity, by the late learned and ingenious Mr. Dawson, 
of Sedbergh. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 299 

Lord Kames, who was a most sincere inquirer after 
truth, abandoned, in the last edition of his Essays on 
Morality and Natural Religion, the doctrine of a de- 
ceitful sense of liberty ; and in so doing gave a rare ex- 
ample of candor and fairness as a reasoner. But I am 
very doubtful if the alterations which he made in his 
scheme did not impair the merits which in its original 
concoction it possessed in point of consistency. The 
first edition of this work appeared when the author was 
in the full vigor of his faculties ; the last, when he was 
approaching to fourscore* 



* One of the ablest of the living asserters of necessity, John Stuart 
Mill, acknowledges, and endeavours to correct, the fatalistic implications 
and tendencies of that doctrine, as generally received. We will give his 
own words : — 

" Though the doctrine of necessity, as stated by most who hold it, is 
very remote from fatalism, it is probable that most necessarians are fatal- 
ists, more or less, in their feelings. A fatalist believes, or half believes 
(for nobody is a consistent fatalist), not only that whatever is about to 
happen will be the infallible result of the causes which produce it (which 
is the true necessarian doctrine), but moreover that there is no use in 
struggling against it ; that it will happen, however we may strive to pre- 
vent it. Now, a necessarian, believing that our actions follow from our 
characters, and that our characters follow from our organization, our edu- 
cation, and our circumstances, is apt to be, with more or less of conscious- 
ness on his part, a fatalist as to his own actions, and to believe that his 
nature is such, or that his education and circumstances have so moulded 
his character, that nothing can now prevent him from feeling and acting 
in a particular way, or at least that no effort of his own can hinder it. In 
the words of the sect [Robert Owen and his followers] which in our own 
day has so pcrseveringly inculcated, and so perversely misunderstood, 
this great doctrine, his character is formed for him, and not by him ; there- 
fore his wishing that it had been formed differently is of no use, — he has 
no power to alter it. But this is a grand error. He has, to a certain ex- 
tent, a power to alter his character. Its being, in the ultimate resort, 
formed for him, is not inconsistent with its being, in part, formed by him 
as one of the intermediate agents His character is formed by his circum- 
stances (including among these his particular organization) ; but his own 
desire to mould it in a particular way is one of those circumstances, and 
by no means one of the least influential. We cannot, indeed, directly will 
to be different from what we are. But did those who are supposed to have 
formed our characters directly will that we should be what we are ? Their 
will had no direct power except over their own actions. They made us* 
what they did make us, by willing, not the end, but the requisite means; 
and we, when our habits are not too inveterate, can, by similarly willing 
the requisite means, make ourselves different. If they could place us un- 
der the influence of certain circumstances, we, in like manner, can place 
ourselves under the influence of other circumstances. We are exactly 



300 FREE AGENCY. 



Section III. 

IS THE EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN FAVOR OF THE 
SCHEME OF FREE WILL, OR OF THAT OF NECESSITY ? 

I. The Appeal to Consciousness.] It has been lately 
said, by a very ingenious and acute writer, that, " in the 



as capable of making our own character, if we will, as others are of mak- 
ing- it for us. 

" ' Yes,' answers the Owenite, ' but these words, " if we will," surrender 
the whole point : since the will to alter our own character is given us, not 
by any efforts of ours, but by circumstances which we cannot help ; it 
comes to us either from external causes, or not at all.' Most true: if the 
Owenite stops here, he is in a position from which nothing can expel him. 
Our character is formed by us, as well as for us ; but the wish which in- 
duces us to attempt to form it is formed for us. And how?, Not in gen- 
eral, by our organization or education, but by our experience, — experi- 
ence of the painful consequences of the character we previously had ; 
or by some strong feeling of admiration or aspiration, accidentally aroused. 
But to think that we have no power, and to think that we shall not use out 
power unless we have a motive, are very different things, and have a very 
different effect upon the mind. A person who does not wish to alter his 
character cannot be the person who is supposed to feel discouraged or par- 
alyzed by thinking himself unable to do it. The depressing effect of the 
fatalist doctrine can only be felt where there is a wish to do what that 
doctrine represents as impossible. It is of no consequence what we think 
forms our character when we have no desire of our own about forming it ; 
but it is of great consequence that we should not be prevented from form- 
ing such a desire by thinking the attainment impracticable," and that, if we 
have the desire, we should know that the work is not so irrevocably done 
as to be incapable of being altered 

" The subject will never be generally understood, until that objectionable 
term [necessity] is dropped. The free-will doctrine, by keeping in viev 
precisely that portion of the truth which the word necessity puts out of 
sight, — namely, the power of the mind to coopci*ate in the formation of 
its own character, — has given to its adherents a practical feeling much 
nearer to the truth than has generally, I believe, existed in the minds of 
necessarians. The latter may have had a stronger sense of the impor- 
tance of what human beings can do to shape the characters of one another ; 
but the free-will doctrine has, I believe, fostered, especially in the younger 
of its supporters, a much stronger spirit of self-culture." — System of Logic, 
Book VI. Chap.' II. § 3. 

The concessions contained in the last paragraph, considered as coming 
from a thorough-going necessitarian, are important. The modification in 
the understanding of the doctrine here proposed removes some of the 
purely psychological objections to it, but does not touch the moral objec- 
tions. The doctrine is still as irreconcilable as ever with any intelligible 
acceptation of human accountability, or the moral government of God. 
And besides, when Mr. Mill asserts that " the feeling of moral freedom 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 301 

controversy concerning liberty and necessity, the only 
question at issue between the disputants related to a 
matter of fact, on which they both appealed to the evi- 
dence of consciousness; namely, whether, all previous 
circumstances being the same, the choice of man be 
not also at all times the same." * 

If the author of this observation had contented him- 
self with saying that this question concerning the mat' 
ter of fact, as ascertained by the evidence of conscious- 
ness, ought to have been considered as the only point at 
issue between the contending parties, I should most 
readily have subscribed to his proposition. Indeed, I 
have expressed myself very nearly to the same purpose 
in a former work.f But if it is to be understood as an 
historical statement of the manner in which the con- 
troversy has always, or even most frequently, been car- 
ried on, I must beg leave to dissent from it very widely. 
How many arguments against the freedom of the will 
have been in all ages drawn from the prescience of the 
Deity ! How many still continue to be drawn by very 
eminent divines from the doctrines of predestination 
and of eternal decrees ! Has not Mr. Locke himself 
acknowledged the impression which the former of these 
considerations made on his mind? " I own," says he, 
" freely to you the weakness of my understanding ; that 
though it be unquestionable that there is omnipotence 
and omniscience in God our Maker, and though I can- 
not have a clearer perception of any thing than that I am 
free, yet I cannot make freedom in man consistent with 
omnipotence and omniscience in God, though I am as 
fully persuaded of both as of any truth I most firmly 
assent to ; and therefore I have long since given off the 
consideration of that question, resolving all into this 

which we arc conscious of" is nothing but a "feeling of our being able 
to modify our own character if we visit" he asserts what the advocates of 
free will will not admit to be true. If what we do depends on our wishing 
to do it, and our wishing to do it does not depend on ourselves, then noth- 
ing depends on ourselves, — except to be the willing and active instruments 
of destiny. — Ed. 

* Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXVII. p. 226. [By. Sir James Mackintosh] 
T Phibsophy of the Human Maul, Tart 11. Chap". J. Sect. II. 

26 



302 FREE AGENCY. 

short conclusion, that if it be possible for God to make 
a free agent, then man is free, though I see not the 
way of it." 

A still more recent exception to the general assertion, 
which has given occasion to this section, occurs in Lord 
Karnes's hypothesis of a deceitful sense of liberty, no- 
ticed above, as maintained in the first edition of his 
Essays on Morality and Natural Religion. Here, upon 
the faith of some subtile metaphysical reasonings, the 
very ingenious author adopts the scheme of necessity 
in direct opposition to the evidence which he candidly 
confesses that consciousness affords of our free agency. 
Even the latest advocates foi necessity, Priestley and 
Belsham, as well as their predecessor, Collins himself, 
while they appealed (in the very words of the learned 
critic) to the evidence of consciousness in proof of the 
fact, that, all previous circumstances being' the same, the 
choice of man is also at all times the same, yet thought 
it worth their while to strengthen this conclusion by 
calling to their aid the theological doctrines already 
mentioned. I cannot, therefore, see with what color of 
plausibility it can be said that " this matter of fact has 
been the only question at issue between the disputants." 

It may, however, be regarded as one great step gained 
in this controversy, if it may henceforth be assumed as 
a principle agreed on by both parties, that this is the 
only question which can be philosophically stated on 
the subject, and that all arguments drawn from the at- 
tributes of the Deity are entirely foreign to the discus- 
sion. I shall accordingly devote this section to an ex- 
amination of the fact, agreeably to the representation 
of it given by our modern necessitarians. 

In what I have hitherto said upon the subject, I have 
proceeded on the supposition, that the doctrine of free 
will is consistent with the common feelings and belief 
of mankind. That " all our actions do now, in expe- 
rience, seem to us to he free, exactly in the same man- 
ner as they would do upon the supposition of our being 
really free agents," is remarked by Clarke in his reply 
to Collins. " And consequently," he adds, " though 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 303 

this alone does not amount to a strict demonstration of 
our being free, yet it leaves on the other side of the 
question nothing but a bare possibility of our being so 
framed by the Author of nature, as to be unavoidably 
deceived in this matter by every experience and every 
action we perform. The case is exactly the same," 
continues Dr. Clarke, " as in that notable question, 
whether the world exists or no. There is no demonstra- 
tion of it from experience. There always remains a 
bare possibility that the Supreme Being may have so 
framed my mind as that I shall always necessarily be 
deceived in every one of my perceptions, as in a dream, 
though possibly there be no material world, nor any 
other creature whatsoever existing besides myself. Of 
this, I say, there always remains a bare possibility, and 
yet no man in his senses argues from thence that expe- 
rience is no proof to us of the existence of things." * 

* Remarks, p. 19. 

Cousin maintains liberty on the authority of consciousness. A free 
action is defined by him to be one " performed with the consciousness 
of power not to do it." He then proceeds to analyze a free action in 
order to ascertain precisely in what part it is free. According to him, the 
total action is resolvable into three elements, perfectly distinct: — " 1. The 
intellectual element, which is composed of the knowledge of the motives 
for and against, of deliberation, of preference, of choice. 2. The voluntary 
element, which consists in an internal act, namely, the resolution, the deter- 
mination to do it. 3. The physical clement, or external action. 

" The question now to be decided is, precisely in which of these three 
elements liberty is to be found, — that is, the power of doing with the con- 
sciousness of being able not to do. Does this power of doing, while con- 
scious of the power not to do, belong to the first element, the intellectual 
element of the free action ? It does not ; for it is not at the will of a man 
to judge that such or such a motive is preferable to another; we are not 
master of our preferences ; we judge in this respect according to our in- 
tellectual nature, which has its necessaiy laws, without having the con- 
sciousness of being able to judge otherwise, and even with the conscious- 
ness of not being able to judge otherwise, than we do. It is not, then, in 
this element that we are to look for liberty. Still less is it in the third 
element, in the physical action ; for this action supposes an external world, 
an organization corresponding to it, and, in this organization, a muscular 
system sound and suitable, without which the physical action would be im- 
possible. When we accomplish it, we are conscious of acting, but under the 
condition of a theatre of which we have not the disposal, and of instruments 
of which we have but an imperfect disposal, which we can neither replace if 
they escape us, — and they may do so every moment, — nor repair if they 
are out of order or unfaithful, as is often the case, and which are subject to 
laws peculiar to themselves, over which we have no power, and which we 



304 FREE AGENCY. 

II. Consciousness vainly denied to be in Favor of Lib- 
erty.] But this appeal to consciousness in proof of free 
agency proceeds altogether (according to some late 
writers) on a partial and superficial view of the sub- 
ject; the evidence of consciousness, when all circum- 
stances are taken into the account and duly weighed, 
being decidedly in favor of the scheme of necessity. 

Dr. Hartley was, I believe, one of the first (if not the 
first) who denied that our consciousness is in favor of 
our free agency. " It is true," he observes, " that a 
man by internal feeling may prove his own free will, 
if by free will be meant the power of doing what a 
man wills or desires; or of resisting the motives of 
sensuality, ambition, &c, that is, free will in the popu- 
lar and practical sense. Every person may easily rec- 
ollect instances where he has done these several things, 
but these are entirely foreign to the present question. 
To prove that a man has free will in the sense oppo- 
site to mechanism, he ought to feel that he can do dif- 
ferent things while the motives remain precisely the 
same. And here, I apprehend, the internal feelings are 
entirely against free will, where the motives are of a 

scarcely even know. Whence it follows, that we do not act here with the 
consciousness of being able to do the contrary of what we do. Liberty, 
then, is no more to be found in the third than in the first element. It can 
then only be in the second; and there in fact we find it. 

" Neglect the first and third elements, the judgment and the physical 
action, and let the second element, the willing, subsist by itself; analysis 
discovers in this single element two terms, namely, a special act of willing, 
and the power of willing, which is within us, and to which we refer the spe- 
cial act. That act is an effect in relation to the power of willing, which is 
its cause ; and this cause, in order to produce its effect, has need of no other 
theatre, and no other instrument, than itself. It produces it directly, with- 
out any thing intermediate, and without condition ; continues and consum- 
mates, or suspends and modifies ; creates it. or annihilates it entirely ; and 
at the moment it exerts itself in any special act, we are conscious that it 
might exert itself in a special act totally contrary, without any obstacle, 
without being thereby exhausted : so that, after having changed its acts a 
hundred times, the faculty remains integrally the same, inexhaustible and 
identical, amidst the perpetual variety of its applications, being always 
able to do what it does not do, and able not to do what it does. Here, 
then, in all its plentitude, is the characteristic of liberty." — Professor 
Henry's translation, Elements of Psychology, Chap. X. p. 319. See, also, 
Tappan's Doctrine of the Will determined by an Appeal to Consciousness. — • 
Ed. 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 305 

sufficient magnitude to be evident : where they are not 
nothing can be proved." * 

Mr. Belsharn has enlarged still more fully on this 
subject. " When men," says he, " who have been 
guilty of a crime review the action in calmer moments, 
when the strength of passion has subsided, and the 
contrary motives appear in all their force, and perhaps 
magnified by the evil consequences of their vice and 
folly, they are ready to think that they might at the 
time have thought and acted as they now think and 
act; but this is a fallacious feeling, and arises from 
their not placing themselves in circumstances exactly 
similar." We are elsewhere told by Mr. Belsham, " that 
the popular opinion, that in many cases it was in the 
power of the agent to have chosen differently, the pre- 
vious circumstances remaining exactly the same, arises 
either from a mistake of the question, from a forgetful' 
ness of the motives by which our choice was determined, 
or from the extreme difficulty of placing ourselves in 
imagination in circumstances exactly similar to those 
in which the election was made." And still more ex- 
plicitly and concisely in the following aphorism: — 
" The pretended consciousness of free will amounts to 
nothing more than forgetfulness of the motive." f To 
the same purpose Dr. Priestley has expressed himself. 
" A man, when he reproaches himself for any particular 
action in his past conduct, may fancy that, if he was 
in the same situation again, he would have acted dif- 
ferently. Bat this is a mere deception; and if he ex- 
amines himself strictly, and takes in all circumstances, 
he may be satisfied that, with the same inward dispo- 
sition of mind, and with precisely the same views of 
things that he had then, and exclusive of all others that 
he has acquired by reflection since, he could not have 
acted otherwise than he did." J 

* Observations on Man, Part I., Conclusion. 
t Elements, pp. 278, 279, 306. 
j I/'l itsl rations of Philosophical Necessity, p. 99. 

The very same view of the subject has been lately taken by Laplace, 
ill his Essai Philosophique sur les Probability. "L'axiome connu sous le 

26* 



306 FREE AGENCY. 

If these statements be accurately examined, they will 
be found to resolve entirely into this identical propo- 
sition, that the ivill of the criminal, being supposed to 
remain in the same state as when the crime was com- 
mitted, he could not have willed and acted otherwise. 
This proposition, it is obvious, does not at all touch 
the cardinal point in question, which is simply this : 
whether, all .other circumstances remaining the same, 
the criminal had it not in his power to abstain from 
willing the commission of the crime. The vagueness 
of Priestley's language upon this occasion must not be 
overlooked ; the words inward disposition of mind ad- 
mitting of a variety of different meanings, and in this 
instance being plainly intended to include the act of 
the will, as well as every thing else connected with the 
criminal action. 

In the preceding strictures, I have been partly antici- 
pated by the following very acute remarks of Dr. Magee 
on the definitions of volition and of philosophical liberty, 
prefixed to Mr. Belsham's discussion of the doctrines 
now under our consideration. According to Mr. Bel- 
sham, " Volition is that state of mind which is imme- 
diately previous to actions which are called voluntary." 
" Natural liberty, or, as it is more properly called, phil- 
osophical liberty, or liberty of choice, is the power of 
doing an action or its contrary, all the previous circum- 
stances remaining the same"* — "Now here," says Dr. 
Magee, " is the point of free will at once decided ; for 
volition itself being included among the previous cir- 
cumstances, it is a manifest contradiction to suppose 
ttie ' power of doing an action or its contrary, all the 



jom de ■principe de la raison suffisante s'etend aux actions meme que l'on 
juge indiffcrentes. La volonte la plus libre ne peut sans un motif deter- 
minant leur donner naissance ; car si. toutes les circonstances de deux po- 
sitions etant exactement semblablcs, elle agissait dans l'une ct s'abstenait 
d'agir dans l'autre, son choix serait un effet sans cause : elle scrait alors, 
(lit Leibnitz, le hasard aveugle des epicuriens. L'opinion contraire est une 
illusion de Fesprit qui pcrdant de vue les raisons fugitives du cboix de la 
volonte dans les choses indiffcrentes. se persuade qu 1 elle s'est determdnee 
d'elle-meme et sans motifs." — Under the head, De la ProbabiliU. 
* Elements, p. 227. 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 307 

previous circumstances remaining the same ' ; since 
that supposes the power to act voluntarily against a 
volition. After this," Dr. Magee justly and pertinently 
adds, " Mr. Belsham might surely have spared himself 
the trouble of the ninety-two pages which follow." * 

And why have recourse, with Belsham and Priestley, 
in this argument, to the indistinct and imperfect recol- 
lection of the criminal at a subsequent period, with re- 
spect to the state of his feelings while he was perpe- 
trating the crime ? Why not make a direct appeal to 
his consciousness at the very moment when he was 
doing the deed ? Will any person of candor deny, 
that, in the very act of transgressing an acknowledged 
duty, he is impressed with a conviction, as complete 
as that of his own existence, that his will is free, and 
that he is abusing, contrary to the suggestions of rea- 
son and conscience, his moral liberty?! 

Sometimes, indeed, when we are under the influence 
of a violent appetite or passion, our judgment is apt 
to see things in a false light; and hence a wise man 
learns to distrust his own opinion when he is thus cir- 
cumstanced, and to act, not according to his present 
judgment, but according to those general maxims of 
propriety of which his reason had previously approved 
in his cooler hours. All this, however, evidently pro- 
ceeds on the supposition of his free agency ; and, so 
far from implying any belief on his part of fatalism or 
of moral necessity, evinces in a manner peculiarly strik- 
ing and satisfactory, the power which he feels himself 
to possess, not only over the present, but over \he future 
determinations of his will. In some other instances, it 
happens that I believe bond fide an action to be right, 
at the moment I perform it, and afterwards discover 
that I judged improperly ; — perhaps from want of suf- 
ficient information, or from a careless and partial "view 

* Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and 
Sacrifice, Appendix, Vol. II. p. 180, note. 

t " The free will of man," says Bolingbroke, " which no one can deny 
that he has, without lying, or renouncing his intuitive knowledge." — Frag* 
vents, No. XLII. 



308 FREE AGENCY. 

of the subject. In such a case, I may undoubtedly 
regret as a misfortune what has happened. 1 may 
blame myself for my carelessness in not having ac- 
quired the proper information before I acted ; but I 
cannot consider myself as criminal in acting at that 
moment according to the views which I then enter- 
tained. On the contrary, if I had acted in opposition 
to these views, although my conduct might have been 
agreeable to the dictates of a more enlightened under- 
standing than my own, yet, with respect to myself, the 
action would have been wrong. 

If the doctrine of necessity were just, what possible 
foundation could there be for the distinction we always 
make between an accidental hurt and an intended in- 
jury, when received from another ? or for the different 
sentiments of regret and of remorse that we experience, 
according as the misfortunes we suffer are the conse- 
quences of our own misconduct or not ? What an al- 
leviation of our sufferings when we are satisfied that 
we cannot consider ourselves as the authors of them! 
and what a cruel aggravation of our miseries, when 
we can trace them to something in which we have 
been obviously to blame! * 

* Sir W. Hamilton accepts the fact of moral liberty on the evidence of 
consciousness ; still he finds insuperable difficulties in conceiving of its pos- 
sibility. In a, note on Dr. Reid's definition of the liberty of a moral agent, 
he says : — " Moral liberty does not merely consist in the power of doing 
what we will, but in the power of willing what we will. For a power over 
the determinations of our will supposes an act of will that our will should 
determine so and so ; for we can only freely exert power through a rational 
determination or volition. But then question upon question remains, and 
this ad infinitum. Have we a power (a will) over such anterior will ? and 
until this question be definitively answered, which it never can be, we must 
be unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though incon- 
ceivable, this fact is not therefore false. For there are many contradic- 
tories (and of contradictories, one must, and one only can, be true), of which 
we are equally unable to conceive the possibility of either. The philoso- 
phy, therefore, which I profess, annihilates the theoretical problem, — How 
is the scheme of liberty, or the scheme of necessity, to be rendered com- 
prehensible ? — by showing that both schemes are equally inconceivable ; 
but it establishes liberty practically as a fact, by showing that it is either 
itself an immediate datum, or is involved in an immediate datum of con- 
sciousness. 

Again he says : — "To conceive a free act is to conceive an act which, 
being a cause, is not in itself an effect; in other words, to conceive an ab* 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 305 



Section IV. 

OF THE SCHEMES OF FREE WILL, AND OF NECESSITY, 
CONSIDERED AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 

I. Tendency of the Scheme of Necessity to Pantheism 
and Atheism.) Collins, in his inquiry concerning hu- 

solute commencement. But is such by us conceivable ? " According to 
bim, in order to be a free agent it is not enougb that a person is the cause 
of the determination of bis own will ; he must not be " determined to tbat 
determination." "But is the person," he asks, "an original undetermined 
cause of the determination of his will ? If he be not, then he is not a free 
agent, and the scheme of necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first place, 
it is impossible to conceive the possibility of this ; and, in the second, if the 
fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is impossible to see how a cavse 
undetermined by any motive can be a rational, moral, and accountable cavse. 
There is no conceivable medium between fatalism and casuism; and the 
contradictory schemes of liberty and necessity themselves am inconceiva- 
ble. For as we cannot compass in thought an undetermined cause, — an abso- 
lute commencement, — the fundamental hypothesis of the one ; so we can as 
little think an infinite series of determined causes, — of relative commencements, 
— the fundamental hypothesis of the other. The champions of the oppo- 
site doctrines are thus at once resistless in assault, and impotent in defence. 
Each is hewn down, and appears to die under the home-thrusts of his ad- 
versary : but each again recovers life from the very death of his antago- 
nist, and, to borrow a simile, both are like the heroes in Valhalla, ready 
in a moment to amuse themselves anew in the bloodless and interminable 
conflict. 

" The doctrine of moral liberty cannot be made conceivable, for we can 
only conceive the determined and the relative. As already stated, all that 
can be done is to show, — 1st. That, for the fact of liberty, we have, im- 
mediately or mediately, the evidence of consciousness ; and, 2d. That there 
are, among the phenomena of mind, many facts which Ave must admit as 
actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly unable to form a notion. I 
may merely observe, that the fact of motion can be shown to be impossible, 
on grounds not less strong than those on which it is attempted to disprove 
the fact of liberty ; to say nothing of many contradictories, neither of which 
can be thought, but one of which must, on the laws of contradiction and 
excluded middle, necessarily be. This philosophy — the Philosophy of the 
Conditioned — has not, however, either in itself, or in relation to its conse- 
quences, as yet been developed." — Hamilton's edition of Beid's Works, 
Essays on the Active Poivers, Essay IV. Chap. I. 

Kant comes to substantially the same conclusions. In his Critic of 
Pun- Reason, under the head of "the antinomy of pure reason" in his 
'■ Transcendental Dialectic,"' he treats of liberty and necessity as consti- 
tuting one of the "contradictions of transcendental ideas," both the "thesis" 
and the "antithesis" being demonstrable. Afterwards, in his Critic oj 
Practical Reason, lie maintains the fact of liberty as a corollary of the fact 
of moral obligation. — Ed. 



310 FREE AGENCY. 

man liberty, after endeavouring to show that "liberty 
can only be grounded on the ' absurd principles of Ep- 
icurean atheism,' " observes, that " the Epicurean athe- 
ists, who were the most popular and most numerous 
sect of the atheists of antiquity, were the great assert- 
ers of liberty ; * as, on the other side, the Stoics, who 
were the most popular and numerous sect among the 
religionists of antiquity, were the great asserters of fate 
and necessity. The case was also the same among the 
Jews as among the heathens.f The Sadducees, who 
were esteemed an irreligious and atheistical sect, main- 
tained the liberty of man. But the Pharisees, who 
were a religious sect, ascribed all things to fate or to 
God's appointment ; and it was the first article of their 
creed, that Fate and God do all; and consequently, 
they could not assert a true liberty, when they asserted 
a liberty together with this fatality and necessity of all 
things." $ 

* In proof of this assertion, that the ancient Epicureans were advo- 
cates for man's free agency, Collins refers to Lucretius, Lib. II. v. 251 et 
seq. But it is to be observed that the liberty here ascribed to the will is 
nothing more than the liberty of spontaneity, which is conceded to it by 
Collins, and indeed by all necessitarians, without exception, since the time 
of Hobbes. Lucretius, indeed, speaks of this liberty as an exception to 
universal fatalism ; but he nevertheless considers it as a necessary effect oj 
some cause, to which he gives the name of clinamen, so as to render man as 
completely a piece of passive mechanism as he was supposed to be by 
Collins and Hobbes. The reason, too, which he gives for this is, that, if 
the case were otherwise, there would be an effect witliout a cause. — Ibid., v. 
284. 

t With respect to the opinions of the Sadducees and the Pharisees on 
man's free agency, see Cud worth's Intellectual System, with Mosheim's 
Notes and Dissertations, translated by Harrison, Book I. Chap. I. § 4. Ac- 
cording to Josephus, the Pharisees held " that some things, and not all, 
were the effects of fate, but some things were left in man's own power and 
liberty."— Antiq. Jud., Lib. XIII. Cap. V. Sect. 9. 

J In this passage, as in others, Collins plainly proceeds on the supposi- 
tion, that all fatalists are of course necessitarians; and I agree with him 
in thinking, that this would be the case if they reasoned consequentially. 
It is certain, however, that a great proportion of those who have belonged 
to the first sect have disclaimed all connection with the second. The Sto- 
ics themselves, notwithstanding what is said above, furnish one very re- 
markable instance. I do not know any author by whom the liberty of the 
will is stated in stronger and more explicit terms than it is by Epictetus, 
in the first sentence of the Enchiridion. Indeed, the Stoics seem, with 
their usual passion for exaggeration, to have carried their ideas about tha 
freedom of the will to an unphilosophical extreme. 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 311 

To the same purpose Edwards attempts to show 
(and it is one of the weakest parts of his book) that 
the scheme of free will (by affording an exception to 
that dictate of common sense which leads us to refer 
every event to a cause) would destroy the proof a pos- 
teriori for the being of God. One thing is certain, 
that the two schemes of atheism and of necessity have 
been hitherto always connected together in the history 
of modern philosophy : not that I would, by any means, 
be understood to say, that every necessitarian must ipso 
facto be an atheist, or even that any presumption is af- 
forded, by a man's attachment to the former sect, of 
his having the slightest bias in favor of the latter, but 
only that every modern atheist T have ever heard of has 
been a necessitarian. I cannot help adding, that by far 
the ablest necessitarians who have yet appeared have 
been those who followed out their principles till they 
ended in Spinozism ; a doctrine which differs from 
atheism more in words than in reality. * 

* " The following is Cousin's view of Spinoza's system. It apparently 
differs from what is said above, but really tends to the same conclusions. 
' Instead of accusing Spinoza of atheism, he ought to be reproached for 
an error in the other direction. Spinoza starts from the perfect and infinite 
being of Descartes's system, and easily demonstrates that such a being is 
alone being in itself, but that a being finite, imperfect, and relative only 
participates of being, without possessing it in itself; — that being in itself 
is necessarily one ; — that there is but one substance ; — and that all that 
remains has only a phenomenal existence ; — that to call phenomena finite 
substances is affirming and denying at the same time ; for as there is but 
one substance which possesses being in itself, and the finite is that which 
participates of existence without possessing it in itself, a substance finite 
implies two contradictory notions. Thus, in the philosophy of Spinoza, 
man and nature are pure phenomena, simple attributes of that one and absolute 
substance, but attributes which are coeternal with their substance : for as 
phenomena cannot exist without a subject, the imperfect without the per- 
fect, the finite without the infinite, and man and nature suppose God ; so, 
likewise, the substance cannot exist without phenomena, the perfect with- 
out the imperfect, the infinite without the finite, and God on his part sup- 
poses man and nature. The error of his system lies in the predominance 
of the relation of phenomenon to being, of attribute to substance, over the 
relation of effect to cause. When man has been represented, not as a 
cause voluntary and free, but as necessary and uncontrollable desire, and 
as an imperfect and finite thought, God, or the supreme pattern of human- 
ity, can be only a substance, and not a cause, — a being perfect, infinite, 
necessary, — the immutable substance of the universe, and not its producing 
and creating cause. In Cartesianism, the notion of substance figures mora 



812 FREE AGENCY. 

II. Moral and Political Tendencies of the Scheme oj 
Necessity.] In Bernier's Abreg-e de la Philosophic de 
Gassendi, there are some very judicious observations 
on the practical tendency of the scheme of necessity ; 
— a subject on which his opinion is entitled to great 
weight, not only from his long residence among the fol- 
lowers of Mahomet, but from those prepossessions in 
favor of this scheme which he may be presumed to 
have imbibed from his education under Gassendi. I 
shall quote a few of his concluding reflections. 



conspicuously than that of cause ; and this notion of substance, become 
altogether predominant, constitutes Spinozism.' — Histoire de la Philoso- 
phic du XVIIP Siecle, Tome I. p. 465. 

" The preponderance of the notion of substance and attribute over that 
of cause and effect, which Cousin here pronounces the vice of Spinoza's 
system, is indeed the vice of every system which contains the dogma of 
the necessary determination of will. The first consequence is pantheism ; 
the second, atheism. I will endeavour to explain. When self-determina- 
tion is denied to will, and it is resolved into mere desire, necessitated in all 
its acts from itspreconstituted correlation with objects, then will really ceas- 
es to be a cause. It becomes an instrument of antecedent, power, but is no 
power in itself, creative or productive. The reasoning employed in refer- 
ence to the human will applies in all its force to the Divine will, as has 
been already abundantly shown. The Divine will therefore ceases to be a 
cause, and becomes a mei - e instrument of antecedent power. This antece- 
dent power is the infinite and necessary wisdom : but infinite and necessary 
wisdom is eternal and unchangeable ; what it is now, it always was ; what 
tendencies or energies it has now, it always had ; and therefore, whatever 
volitions it now necessarily produces, it always necessarily produced. ]f 
we conceive a volition to have been, in one direction, the immediate and 
necessary antecedent of creation ; and, in another, the immediate and ne- 
cessary sequent of infinite and eternal wisdom : then this volition must have 
always existed, and consequently creation, as the necessary effect of this vo- 
lition, must have ahvays existed. The eternal and infinite wisdom thus be- 
comes the substance, because this is existence in itself, no antecedent being 
conceivable; and creation, that is to say, man and nature, imperfect and 
finite, participating only of existence, and not being existence in them- 
selves, are not substances, but phenomena. But what is the relation of the 
phenomena to the substance? Not that of effect to cause ; — this relation 
slides entirely out of view, the moment ivill ceases to be a cause. It is the 
relation simply of phenomena to being, considered as the necessary and 
inseparable manifestations of being ; the relation of attributes to substance, 
considered as the necessary and inseparable properties of substance. We 
cannot conceive of substance without attributes or phenomena, nor of at- 
tributes or phenomena without substance : they are, therefore, coeternal 
in this relation. Wlw, then, is God ?' Substance and its attributes ; being 
and its phenomena. In other words, the universe, as made up of substance 
and attributes, is God. This is pantheism ; and it is the first and legiti 
mate consequence of a necessitated will. 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 313 

u De tout ceci jugez si j'ai sujet de croire cette doc- 
trine si pernicieuse a la societe humaine. Certaine- 
ment a considerer que ce sont principalement les Ma- 
hometans qui s'en trouvent infectees, et que c'est prin- 
cipalement encore parmi elles presentement qu'elle est 
fomentee et entretenue, je douterois presque que ce fut 
l'invention de quelques uns de ces tyrans d'Asie, com mo. 
auroit peut-etre un Mahomet, un Tamerlane, un Baja- 
sset, ou quelqu'un de ces autres fleaux du monde qui 
pour assouvir leur ambition demandoit des soldats qui 

" The second consequence is atheism. In the denial of will as a cause 
per se, — in resolving all its volitions into the necessary phenomena of the 
eternal substance, — we destroy personality : we have nothing remaining but 
the universe. Now we may call the universe God; but with equal proprie- 
ty we call God the universe. This distinction of personality, this merging 
of God into necessary substance and attributes, is all that we mean by 
atheism. The conception is really the same, whether we name it fate, pan- 
theism, or atheism. 

" The arguments of many atheists might be referred to, to illustrate the 
connection between necessity and atheism. I shall here refer, however, to 
only one individual, remarkable both for his poetic genius and metaphysi- 
cal acumen. I mean the late Percy Bysshe Shelley. He openly and un- 
blushingly professed atheism. In his Queen Mab we find this line : ' There 
is no God.' In a note upon this line, he remarks, — ' This negation must 
be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a per- 
vading spirit, coeternal with the universe, remains unshaken.' This last hy- 
pothesis is pantheism. Pantheism is really the negation of a creative De- 
ity, — the identity, or at least necessary and eternal coexistence, of God 
and the universe. Shelley has expressed this clearly in another passage : — 

' Spirit of nature ! all-sufficing power, 
Necessity ! thou mother of the world ! ' 

" In a note tipon this passage, Shelley has argued the doctrine of the 
necessary determination of will by motive with an acuteness and power 
scarcely inferior to Collins or Edwards. He makes, indeed, a different 
application of the doctrine, but a perfectly legitimate one. Collins and 
Edwards, and the whole race of necessitarian theologians, evidently toil 
under insurmountable difficulties, while attempting to base religion upon 
this doctrine, and effect their escape only under a fog of subtilties. But 
Shelley, in daring to be perfectly consistent, is perfectly clear. He fear- 
lessly proceeds from necessity to pantheism, and thence to atheism and the 
destruction of all moral distinctions. ' We are taught,' he remarks, ' by 
the doctrine of necessity, that there is neither good nor evil in the universe, 
otherwise than as the events to which we apply these epithets have relation 
to our own peculiar mode of being. Still less than with the hypothesis of 
a God, will the doctrine of necessity accord with the belief of a future 
state of punishment.'" — Tappan's Review of Edwards, pp. 139, 145. For 
an exposition of Spinoza's theory, see Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics^ Lect 
VI. and VII. — Ed. 

27 



314 FREE AGENCY. 

etant entetes de predestination, s'abandonassent bratale- 
ment a tout, et se precipitassent me me volontiers, aux 
occasions, la tete la premiere dans le fosse d'une ville 
assiegee pour servir du pont au reste de l'armee. Je 
s$ais bien qu'on pourroit peut-etre dire que cette opin- 
ion est mal prise et mal entendue par les Mahometans ; 
mais quoi qu'il en soit, que doit on raisonablement pen- 
ser d'une doctrine qui peut si aisement etre mal-prise et 
qui peut, soit par erreur ou autrement, avoir si etranges 
suites?"* 

The scheme of free will is not liable to any such ob- 
jection, inasmuch as it seems quite impossible for the 
most ingenious sophistry to pervert it to any pernicious 
purpose. Indeed, its great object is to reconcile with 
the conclusions of our reason those moral feelings 
which are so essential, both to our own happiness and 
to the interests of society, that they have been regarded 
by some of the most acute as well as candid partisans 
of necessity as merciful illusions of the imagination, 
by which man is blinded to the melancholy fact of his 
real condition : " Nervis alienis mobile lignum ! " 

There is good reason to believe that the practical 
consequences produced by the scheme of necessity at 
the time of the Reformation alarmed the minds of 
some very able men by whom it was at first adopted. 



* Tome VIII. p. 536 et seq. " Judge from what has been said whether 
I have not reason to think this doctrine pernicious to society. Indeed, 
when I consider that it is principally the Mahometans who are infected 
with it, that it is principally by them that it is still fomented and kept up, 
I almost suspect it to have been the invention of one of those Asiatic 
despots, of a Mahomet, a Tamerlane, a Bajazet, or some other scourge 
of the world, who, in order to glut his ambition, required soldiers besot- 
ted by a belief in predestination, and therefore ready to abandon them- 
selves brutally to every thing, — to precipitate themselves headlong, if ne- 
cessary, into the trenches of a besieged city to serve as a bridge for the 
rest of the army. Many will say, I am aware, that this doctrine is mis- 
taken and misunderstood by the Mahometans ; but, however this may be, 
what opinion can we reasonably entertain of a tenet which is so liable to 
be misapprehended, and is followed, either through mistake or otherwise, 
by such strange consequences ? " 

For a less unfavorable view of the practical tendency of a belief in ne- 
cessity, see an article by Sir James Mackintosh, in the Edinburgh Review, 
Vol. XXVII. p. 180. — Ed. 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 315 

« The Germans," says Dr. Burnet, " saw the ill effects 
of the doctrine of decrees. Luther changed his mind 
about it, and Melancthon wrote openly against it ; and 
since that time the whole stream of the Lutheran 
churches has run the other way. But still Calvin and 
Bucer were both for maintaining the doctrine ; only they 
warned the people not to think much about them, since 
they were secrets that men could not penetrate into. 
Hooper and many other good writers did often exhort 
the people from entering into these curiosities ; and a 
caveat to the same purpose was put into the article 
about predestination." * 

" Concerning the disputants themselves," says Dr. 
Jortin, " we may safely affirm, that the defenders of the 
liberty of man, and of the conditional decrees of God, 
have been, beyond all comparison, the more learned, ju- 
dicious, and moderate men ; and that severity and op- 
pression have appeared most on the other side." f 

Priestley has somewhere very justly remarked, that 
there are some men so happily born that no speculative 
theories are likely to mislead them from their duty; 
and of the truth of his observation I sincerely believe 
that his own private life afforded a very striking exam- 
ple. Little stress, therefore, is to be laid on individual 
cases as arguments for or against the practical tenden- 
cy of any philosophical dogma. The case, however, is 
very different with respect to observations made on so 
great a scale as those above quoted from Bernier and 
Burnet. Let me add, that the practical influence of 
the scheme of necessity ought not to be judged of 
from the lives of its speculative partisans, but from 
those of persons who have been educated from their 
early years in the belief of it. In this point of view, 
it might be interesting to trace the history of the im- 
mediate descendants of some of the most zealous ad- 
vocates for necessity. If the principles which they 
have advanced be just, particularly those they have laid 



* Burnet on the Reformation, Part II. p. 113. 
\ Six Dissertations, Diss. I. p. 4. 



316 



FREE AGENCY. 



down on the influence of education, the moral charac- 
ters of their pupils should, or rather must, be exemplary 
in no common degree. 

Section V. 

ON THE ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY DRAWN FROM THE 
PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 

I. The Argument stated and answer ed\ In reviewing 
the arguments that have been advanced on the oppo- 
site sides of this question, I have hitherto taken no no- 
tice of those which the necessitarians have founded on 
the prescience of the Deity, because I do not think 
them fairly applicable to the subject; inasmuch as they 
draw an inference from what is altogether placed be- 
yond the reach of our faculties, against a fact for which 
every man has the evidence of his own consciousness. 
Some of the advocates, however, for liberty have ven- 
tured to meet their adversaries even on this ground ; in 
particular, Dr. Clarke, in his Demonstration of the Be- 
ing and Attributes of God, and Dr. Reid, in his Essays 
on the Active Powers of Man. Both of these writers 
have attempted to show, with much ingenuity and sub- 
tilty of reasoning, that, even although we should admit 
the prescience of God in the fullest extent in which it 
has ever been ascribed to him, it does not lead to any 
conclusion inconsistent with man's free agency. On 
their speculations on this point I have no commentary 
to offer. 

The argument for necessity, drawn from the Divine 
prescience, is much insisted on both by Collins and Ed- 
wards ; more especially by the latter, who, after insist- 
ing at great length on " God's certain foreknowledge 
of the volitions of moral agents," undertakes to show 
that " this foreknowledge infers a necessity of volition 
as much as an absolute decree." 

Mr. Belsham, on this as on other occasions, rises 
above his predecessors in the boldness of his assertions 
M The principal argument in favor of moral necessity 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 317 

and the insurmountable objection against the existence 
of philosophical liberty in any degree, or under any re- 
strictions whatever, arises from the prescience of God. 
Liberty and prescience stand in direct hostility to each 
other. A philosopher, to be consistent, must give up 
one or the other." " Upon the whole, the advocates 
for philosophical liberty are reduced to the dilemma, 
either of denying the foreknowledge of God, and thus 
robbing the Deity of one of his most glorious attributes, 
or of admitting that God is the author of evil, in the 
same sense, and in the same degrees, in which this doc- 
trine is charged upon the necessarians." * 

On this argument I shall make but one remark, that, 
if it be conclusive, it only serves to identify still more 
the creed of the necessitarians with that of Spinoza. 
For if God certainly foresees all the future volitions of 
his creatures, he must, for the same reason, foresee all 
his own future volitions ; and if this foreknowledge in- 
fers a necessity of volition in the one case, how is it 
possible to avoid the same inference in the other ? Mr. 
Belsham seems to have been not unaware of this infer- 
ence ; but shows no disposition, on account of it, to 
shrink from his principles. " It is always to be remem- 
bered that the prescience of an agent necessarily in- 
cludes predestination, though that of a spectator may 
not. It is nonsense to say that a being does not mean 
to bring an event to pass which he foresees to be the 
certain and inevitable consequence of his own previ- 
ous voluntary action." f 

I have already mentioned the attempt of Clarke and 
others to show that no valid argument against the 
scheme of free will can be deduced from the prescience 
of God, even supposing that prescience to extend to all 
the actions of voluntary beings. On this point I must 
decline offering any opinion of my own, because I con- 
ceive it as placed far beyond the reach of our faculties. 
It is sufficient for my purpose to observe, that, if it 
could be demonstrated (which, in my opinion, has not 

* Elements, pp. 293, 302. t Elements^ p. 307, 

27 * 



318 FREE AGENCY. 

yet been done) that the prescience of the volitions of 
moral agents is incompatible with the free agency ol 
man, the logical inference would be, not in favor of the 
scheme of necessity, but that there are some events the 
foreknowledge of which implies an impossibility. Shall 
we venture to affirm that it exceeds the power of God 
to permit such a train of contingent events to take 
place, as his own foreknowledge shall not extend to ? 
Does not such a proposition detract from the omnipo- 
tence of God, in the same proportion in which it aims 
to exalt his omniscience ? * 



* The strength of Edwards's argument to prove that "no future event 
can be certainly foreknown, whose existence is contingent, and without all 
necessity," maybe summed up in the following syllogism: — 

It is impossible for a thing to be certainly known to any intellect with- 
out evidence. 

A contingent future event is without evidence. 

Therefore, a contingent future event is a thing impossible to be certainly 
known. 

Mr. Tappan says: — "I dispute both premises. That which is known 
by evidence or proof is mediate knowledge ; — that is, we know it through 
something which is immediate, standing between the faculty of knowledge 
and the object of knowledge in question. That which is known intuitive- 
ly is known without proof; and this is immediate knowledge. In this way 
all axioms or first truths, and all facts of the senses, are known. Indeed, 
evidence itself implies immediate knowledge, for the evidence by which 
any thing is known is itself immediate knowledge. To a Being, therefore, 
whose knowledge fills duration, future and past events may be as immedi- 
ately known as present events. Indeed, can we conceive of God otherwise 
than as immediately knowing all things ? An Infinite and Eternal Intelli- 
gence cannot be thought of under relations of time and space, or as arriv- 
ing at knowledge through media of proof or demonstration. So much for 
the first premise. The second is equally untenable: — 'A contingent fu- 
ture event is without evidence.' We grant with Edwards that it is not 
self-evident, implying by that the evidence arising from '■the necessity of its 
nature,'' as, for example, 2 X 2 = 4. What is self-evident [from being im- 
mediately perceived] does not require any [other] evidence or proof, but is 
known immediately;, and a future contingent event may be self-evident [in 
this sense] as a fact lying before the Divine mind reaching into futurity, 
although it cannot be self-evident from ' the necessity of its nature.' " — 
Review of Edwards, p. 256. 

The following remarks on the same subject are from Dr. Copleston'si 
Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination, p. 45, note. " Ed- 
wards, in his work on the Freedom of the Will, dwells much upon the dis- 
tinction between making the event necessary, and proving it to be necessary. 
Whether prescience,' he says, ' be the thing that makes the event necessary 
Jr no, it alters not the case. Infallible foreknowledge may prove the ne 
cessity of the event foreknown, and yet not be the thing that causes the n& 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 319 

TI. Source of the General Prevalence of Fatalism 
among 1 Unenlightened Nations.] It is a circumstance 
not a little curious in the history of the human mind, 
that, while men have been in all ages impressed with 
this irresistible conviction of their own free agency, 
they have nevertheless had a proneness, not only to ad- 
mit the prescience of God in its fullest extent, but to 
suppose that there is a fatal and irresistible destiny 
attending every individual. Traces of this opinion 
occur in every country of the world of which we have 
received any account. We meet with it among the 
sages of Greece, and among the ignorant and unenlight- 
ened natives of St. Kilda. The following Arabian tale, 
which I quote from the late Mr. Harris, will place the 
import of the doctrine I now allude to in a more strik- 
ing light than I could possibly do by any philosophical 
comment. 

" The Arabians tell us," says this author, " that as 
Solomon (whom they supposed a magician from his su- 
perior wisdom) was one day walking with a person in 
Palestine, his companion said to him with horror, 
' What hideous spectre is that which approaches us? 
I don't like his visage. Send me, I pray thee, to the 
remotest mountain of India.' Solomon complied, 



cessity.' Part II. Sect. XII. But infallible foreknowledge, while it re- 
mains foreknowledge, proves nothing. When the being which possesses 
this foreknowledge declares that a thing will come to pass, that declaration 
indeed proves, or is a certain ground of assurance to us, that it will come 
to pass. Even then it does not prove the event to be necessary. 

M If, however, the question be regarded as merely logical, namely, wheth- 
er the very term foreknowledge does not imply a necessity in the thing fore- 
known, it must be decided by the established use of words. That such is 
not the received definition of the term may, I believe, be with confidence 
asserted ; and the confusion, whenever it does prevail, seems to arise from 
the following cause. We may be unable to conceive how a thing not 
necessary in its nature can be foreknown ; for our foreknowledge is in gen- 
eral limited by that circumstance, and is more or less perfect in proportion 
to the fixed or necessary nature of the things we contemplate, with which 
nature we become acquainted by experience, and are thus able to antici- 
pate a great variety of events ; but to subject the knowledge of God to 
any such limitation is surely absurd and unphilosophical, as well as impi- 
ous : and, therefore, to mix up the idea of God's foreknowledge with any 
quality in the nature of the things foreknown is even less excusable than 
to be guilty of that confusion when speaking of ourselves." — Ed. 



320 FREE AGENCY. 

and the very moment he was sent off the spectre ar- 
rived, < Solomon,' said the spectre, < how came that 
fellow here ? I was to have fetched him from the re- 
motest mountain of India.' Solomon answered, ' An- 
gel of Death, thou wilt find him there.'' " * 

The general prevalence of fatalism among unenlight- 
ened nations is the obvious effect of the insidious les- 
sons inculcated by their religious instructors. The 
chief expedient employed by the priesthood in all rude 
countries for subjecting the minds of the people is to 
impress them with a belief that it is possible, by the 
study of auguries, of omens, or of judicial astrology, to 
gratify that misguided curiosity which disposes blind 
mortals anxiously to tear asunder the merciful veil 
drawn by Providence over futurity. " Wherever super- 
stition," says Dr. Robertson, " is so established as to 
form a regular system, this desire of penetrating into 
the secrets of futurity is connected with it. Divination 
becomes a religious act; and priests, as the ministers 
of Heaven, pretend to deliver its oracles to man. They 
are the only soothsayers, augurs, and magicians who 
possess the sacred and important art of disclosing what 
is hid from other eyes." f 

III. No Dogma sufficient to efface the Consciousness 
of Moral Liberty.] Between this creed and that of an 
inevitable fate or destiny the connection is necessary 



* Philosophical Inquiries, Part III. Chap. VII. The following remark 
of M. Ancillon upon the difference between the Mahometan doctrine of 
destiny, and that which prevailed upon the same subject among the ancient 
Greeks, appears to me just and important. " II \ a une grande difference 
entre le destin des Orientaux, surtout depuis que Mahomet a fait, d'une 
doctrine gcneralement repandue avant lui, un article de foi, et le Polythe- 
ismc Grec Le Grec lutte contre le destin, et tout en succomhant sous sa 
force, il fait preuve dc libertc : le Mahometan se resigne en aveugle avant 
I'evenemcnt ; lors memo qu'il agit, il agit en homme a qui Taction nc scr- 
vira dc lien. Le premier mnrmure contre ce pouvoir, et le supportc avee 
impatience ; le second s'en fclicite parcc qu'il dispense dc l'activite. Les 
Grccs placoicnt la force aveugle dans le destin ; et la pensee qui lui resiste, 
ct qui le combat, dans l'homme ; chez les Mahometans la force aveugle est 
dans l'homme ; cctte force n'est qu'une force passive, et la pensee est dans 
le destin." — Essais Philosopluques, Tome I. pp. 150, 151. 

t History of America, Book IV. 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 321 

and obvious ; and hence in every false religion the 
scheme of fatalism may be expected to form, not only 
an essential, but the fundamental article. The inconsid- 
erable influence which this theological dogma (a dog- 
ma, too, peculiarly calculated to affect and even to over- 
whelm the imagination) has always had in stifling the 
sentiment of remorse on the commission of a crime, 
affords a demonstrative proof of the impotence of such 
scholastic refinements, when opposed to the feelings of 
nature, on a question concerning which these feelings 
form the only tribunal to which a legitimate appeal can 
be made. That a criminal, in order to alleviate the 
pang of remorse, may have sometimes sought for relief 
in this doctrine, is far from being improbable ; but no 
man ever acted on this belief in the common concerns 
of human life ; and, indeed, some of its most zealous 
partisans have acknowledged (particularly Lord Karnes), 
that, were it to prevail universally as a practical princi- 
ple, the business of the world could not possibly go on. 
In the ancient Stoical system (as I have already ob- 
served), the doctrine of fatalism and that of man's free 
agency were both admitted as fundamental articles of 
belief. " By fate," says Mrs. Carter, " the Stoics seem 
to have understood a series of events appointed by the 
immutable councils of God, or that law of his provi- 
dence by which he governs the world. It is evident 
by their writings that they meant it in no sense which 
interferes with the liberty of human actions." Of the 
truth of this remark the most satisfactory evidence is 
afforded by the very first sentence of the Enchiridion of 
Epictetus, in which it is explicitly stated, that " opinion, 
pursuit, desire, and aversion, and, in one word, what- 
ever are our own actions, are in our own power." * 

* That the doctrine of fatalism, however, led some of the Stoics to very 
impious and alarming consequences, appears from the following words, 
which Lucan puts into the mouth of Cato. 

" Summum Brute nefas civilia bella fatemur, 
Sed quo fata trahunt, virtus secura sequctur. 
Crimen erit superis et mefecisse nocentem." 

Pliar. II. 254. 
Sec, also, Lib. VII. 657. — Copleston, Protect. Acad., p. 277. 



322 



FREE AGENCY. 



Such, too, is the philosophy of Virgil: — 

" Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus 
Omnibus est vita? ; sed famam extendere factis 
Hoc virtutis opus." * 

The doctrine, however, of fatalism, and of an inevi- 
table destiny, must not be confounded with that of the 
Divine prescience, between which and the freedom of 
human actions some of our profoundest philosophers, 
as I have already observed (particularly Clarke and 
Reid), have labored to show that there is no inconsis- 
tency ; while other writers of no less eminence have ap- 
prehended that there is no absurdity in supposing that 
the Deity may, for wise purposes, have chosen to open 
a source of contingency in the voluntary actions of his 
creatures, to which no prescience can possibly extend. 

Whatever opinion we may adopt on this point, the 
conclusions formerly stated concerning man's free agen- 
cy remain unshaken. Our own free will we know by 
our consciousness ; and "we can have no evidence for 
any other truth so irresistible as this. On the other 
hand, it would unquestionably be rash and impious in 
us, from the fact of our own free will, to deny that our 
actions may be foreseen by the Deity, or to measure the 
Divine attributes by a standard borrowed from our im- 
perfect faculties. The conclusion of St. Augustine on 
this subject is equally pious and philosophical. " Where- 
fore we are nowise reduced to the necessity, either by 
admitting the prescience of God, to deny the freedom 
of the human will, or by admitting the freedom of the 
will to hazard the impious assertion, that the prescience 

* JEneid., Lib. X. 467. 

" To all tbat breathe is fixed the appointed date ; 
Life is but short, and circumscribed by fate : 
'T is virtue's work by fame to stretch the span, 
Whose scanty limit bounds the days of man." 

The notions of Virgil, however, on this point, as is well observed by 
Servius, do not seem to have been quite consistent. How are the follow- 
ing lines, which he applies to Dido, to be reconciled with the above pas- 
gage 1 

" Nam quia nee fato, merita nee morte peribat ; 
Sed misera ante diem." — Idem, Lib. IV. 695. 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 323 

of God does not extend to all future contingencies: 
but, on the contrary, we are disposed to embrace both 
doctrines, and with sincerity to bear testimony to their 
truth, — the one that our faith may be sound, the other 
that our lives may be good" * 

* The following passage in one of Gray's letters has a sufficient connec- 
tion with what is said above to justify me in giving it a place here. In- 
deed, were the connection much slighter and less obvious than it is, little 
apology would be necessary for relieving the attention of the reader by 
quoting any thing relating to so important a subject from such a pen. 

" I am as sorry as you seem to be, that our acquaintance harped so much 
on the subject of materialism when I saw him with you in town, because 
it was plain to which side of the long-debated question he inclined. That 
we are, indeed, mechanical and dependent beings, I need no other proof 
than my own feelings ; and from the same feelings I learn with equal con- 
viction, that we are not merely such. That there is a power within which 
struggles against the force and bias of that mechanism, commands its mo- 
tion, and by frequent practice reduces it to that ready obedience we call 
habit; and all this in conformity to a preconceived opinion (no matter 
whether right or wrong), — to that least material of all agents, a thought. 
I have known many in his case, who, while they thought they were con- 
quering an old prejudice, did not perceive that they were under the influ- 
ence of one far more dangerous, — one that furnishes us with a ready 
apology for all our worst actions, and opens to us a full license for doing 
whatever we please ; and yet these very people were not at all the more 
indulgent to other men (as they naturally should have been) ; their indig- 
nation at such as offended them, their desire of revenge on any body that 
hurt them, was nothing mitigated. In short, they wished to be persuaded 
of that opinion for the sake of its convenience, but were not so in their 
hearts ; and they would have been glad (as they ought in common pru- 
dence) that nobody else should think the same, for fear of the mischief 
that might ensue to themselves. His French author I never saw. but have 
read fifty in the same strain, and shall read no more. / can be wretched 
enough without them." — Works, by Mason, Letter XXXI. 

I shall avail myself of this note to remark, that, on the subject of free 
will, though Locke has thrown out many important observations, he is on 
the whole more indistinct, undecided, and inconsistent than might have 
been expected from his powerful mind, when directed to so important a 
question. This .was probably owing to his own strong feelings in favor of 
man's moral liberty, combined with the deep impression left on his philo 
sophical creed by the writings of Hobbes, and by the habits of intimacy 
and friendship in which he lived with the acutest and ablest of all neces 
sitarians, Anthony Collins. That Locke conceived himself to be an advo- 
cate for free will appears indisputably from many expressions in his chap- 
ter On Power ; and yet in that very chapter he has made various conces- 
sions to his adversaries, in which he seems to yield all that was contended 
for by Hobbes and Collins ; and accordingly, he is ranked, with some ap- 
pearance of truth, by Priestley, with those who, while they opposed verbal- 
ly the scheme of necessity, have adopted it substantially, Avithout being 
aware of their mistake. 

[To the multitude of works cited or referred to in this chapter may be 



324 



FREE AGENCY. 



added the following: — Crombie's Essay on Philosophical Necessity; Bray's 
Philosophy of Necessity ; Cogan's Ethical Questions, Question IV.; Sir T. 
C. Morgan's Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals, Chap. II. ; Bailey's Es- 
says on the Pursuit of Truth, frc, Essay III. ; Gregory's Essay in Defence 
of Philosophical Liberty; Bockshammer On the Freedom of the Human 
Will; Charma, Essai sur les Bases et les Developpements de la MoralitA, 
Part. I. Sect. I., II. ; Damiron, Psychologic, Liv. I. Sect. II. Chap. III. ; 
Ballantyne's Examination of the Human Mind, Chap. III. ; Gibon, Cours de 
Philosophic, Part. I. Chap. XIII. ; Blakey's Essay showing the Intimate Con- 
nection between our Notions of Moral Good and Evil and our Conceptions of 
the Freedom of the Divine and Human Wills ; Harvey's Examination of (he 
Pelagian and Arminian Theory of Moral Agency; Day's Inquiry respecting 
the Self-determining Power of the Will ; Day's Examination of President 
Edwards's Inquiry en the Freedom of the Will-\ 



BOOK III. 

OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF OUR DUTY. 

The different theories which have been proposed con- 
cerning the nature and essence of virtue have arisen 
chiefly from attempts to trace all the branches of our 
duty to one principle of action; — such as a rational 
self-love, benevolence, justice, or a disposition to obey 
the will of God. 

In order to avoid those partial views of the subject 
which naturally take their rise from an undue love of 
system, the following inquiries proceed on an arrange- 
ment which has, in all ages, recommended itself to the 
good sense of mankind. This arrangement is founded 
on the different objects to which our duties relate. 1st. 
The Deity. 2d. Our Fellow- Creatures. And, 3d. 
Ourselves. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT THE DEITY. 

I. The Duty of Religious Consideration.] It is 
scarcely possible to conceive a man capable of reflec- 
tion, who has not, at times, proposed to himself the 
following questions: — Whence am I? and whence 
the innumerable tribes of plants and of animals which 
I see, in constant succession, rising into existence? 
Whence the beautiful fabric of this universe ? and by 
what wise and powerful Being were the principles of 
my constitution so wonderfully adapted to the various 
objects around me? To whom am I indebted for the 
28 



326 DUTIES TO GOD. 

distinguished rank which I hold in the creation, and 
for the numberless blessings which have fallen to my 
lot? And what return shall I make for this profusion 
of goodness ? The only return I can make is by ac- 
commodating my conduct to the will of my Creator, 
and by fulfilling, as far as I am able, the purposes of 
my being. 

But how are these purposes to be discovered? The 
analogy of the lower animals gives me here no infor- 
mation. They, too, as well as I, are endowed with va- 
rious instincts and appetites ; but their nature, on the 
whole, exhibits a striking contrast to mine. They are 
impelled by a blind determination towards their proper 
objects, and seem to obey the law of their nature in 
yielding to every principle which excites them to ac- 
tion. In my own species alone the case is different. 
Every individual chooses for himself the ends of his 
pursuit, and chooses the means which he is to employ 
for attaining them. Are all these elections equally 
good ? and is there no law prescribed to man ? I feel 
the reverse. I am able to distinguish what is right 
from what is wrong; what is honorable and becoming 
from what is unworthy and base ; what is laudable and 
meritorious from what is shameful and criminal. Here, 
then, are plain indications of the conduct I ought to 
pursue. There is a law prescribed to man as well as 
to the brutes. The only difference is, that it depends 
on my own will whether I obey or disobey it. And 
shall I alone counteract the intentions of my Maker, 
by abusing that freedom of choice which he has been 
pleased to bestow on me, by raising me to the <rank of 
a rational and moral being ? 

This is surely the language of nature; and which 
could not fail to occur to every man capable of serious 
thought, were not the understanding and the moral 
feelings in some instances miserably perverted by relig- 
ious and political prejudices, and in others by the false 
refinements of metaphysical theories. How callous must 
be that heart which does not echo back the reflections 
which Milton puts into the mouth of our first parent ? 



DUTIES TO GOD. 327 

" Thoti sun, said I, fair light, 
And thou, enlightened earth, so fresh and gay, 
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, 
And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, 
Tell, if you saw, how came I thus, how here ; 
Not of myself ; by some great maker then, 
In goodness, as in power, preeminent ; 
Tell me how I may know him, how adore, 
From whom I have, that thus I move and live, 
And feel that I am happier than I know." 

II. The Duty of Piety.} If the Deity be possessed 
of infinite moral excellence, we must feel towards him, 
in an infinite degree, all those affections of love, grati- 
tude, and confidence, which are excited by the imper- 
fect worth we observe among our fellow-creatures. 
Now it is only by conceiving all that is benevolent and 
amiable in man raised to the highest perfection, that 
we can form some faint notion of the Divine nature. 
To cultivate, therefore, an habitual love and reverence 
of the Supreme Being may be justly considered as the 
first great branch of morality ; nor is the virtue of that 
man complete, or even consistent with itself, in whose 
mind those sentiments of piety are wanting. 

Piety seems to be considered by Mr. Smith as found- 
ed in some degree on those principles of our nature 
which connect us with our fellow-creatures. The de- 
jection of mind which accompanies a state of complete 
solitude ; the disposition we have to impart to others 
our thoughts and feelings ; the desire we have of other 
intelligent and moral natures to sympathize with our 
own, — all lead us, in the progress of reason and of 
moral perception, to establish gradually a mental inter- 
course with the Invisible Witness and Judge of our 
conduct. An habitual sense of -the Divine presence 
comes at last to be formed. In every object or event 
that we see, we trace the hand of the Almighty,, and in 
the/suggestions of reason and conscience we listen to 
his inspirations. In this intercourse of the heart with 
God, (an intercourse which enlivens and gladdens the 
most desolate scenes, and which dignifies the duties of 
the meanest station,) the supreme felicity of our na- 
ture is to be found ; and till it is firmly established, 



328 DUTIES TO GOD. 

there remains a void in every breast which nothiug 
earthly can supply ; — a consideration which proves 
that religion has a foundation in the original principles 
of our constitution, while it affords us a presage of 
that immortal happiness which Providence has destined 
to be the reward of virtue.* 

III. Religion necessary as a Support to Public and 
Private Virtue.] Although religion can with no pro- 
priety be considered as the sole foundation of morality, 
yet, when we are convinced that God is infinitely good, 
and that he is the friend and protector of virtue, this 
belief affords the most powerful inducements to the 
practice of every branch of our duty. It leads us to 
consider conscience as the vicegerent of God, and to 
attend to its suggestions as to the commands of that 
Being from whom we have received our existence, and 
the great object of whose government is to promote 
the happiness and the perfection of his whole creation. 

These considerations not only are addressed to our 
gratitude, but awaken in the mind a sentiment of uni- 
versal benevolence, and make us feel a relation to every 
part of the universe. In doing our duty, we conceive 
ourselves as fellow- workers with the Deity, and as will- 
ing instruments in his hands for promoting the benev- 
olent purposes of his administration. This is that sub- 
lime sentiment of piety and benevolence which we 
meet with so often in the writings of the ancient Stoics. 
" Shall any one say," observes Antoninus, " ' O be- 
loved city of Cecrops! ' and wilt not thou say, ' O be- 
loved city of God'?" 

In this manner it appears that a sense of religion is 
favorable to the practice of virtue in two respects ; first, 
by leading us to consider every act of duty as an ex- 
pression of gratitude to God ; and, secondly, as leading 
us to regard ourselves as parts of that universal system 



* For a further consideration of this important subject, see Butler's two 
Sermons Upon Piety, or the Love of God. Also, his Analog//, Part II. 
Chap. I. — Ed. 



DUTIES TO GOD. 329 

ot which he is the Author and Governor. There is 
another respect in which it is calculated to influence 
our conduct very powerfully, as it is addressed to our 
hopes 'And fears. In this view religion is a species of 
authoritative law, enforced by the most awful sanctions, 
and of which it is impossible for us, by any art, to 
elude the penalties. In the case of the lower orders of 
men, who are incapable of abstract speculation, and 
whose moral feelings cannot be supposed to have re- 
ceived much cultivation, it is chiefly this view of re- 
ligion, as addressed to their hopes and fears, that se- 
cures a faithful discharge of their duties as members of 
society. In vain would the civil magistrate attempt to 
preserve the order of society by annexing the penalty 
of death to heinous offences, if men in general appre- 
hended that there was nothing to be feared beyond the 
grave. And it is of importance to remark, that this ob- 
servation applies with peculiar force to the lower orders, 
who have commonly much less attachment to life than 
their superiors. Of this truth, all wise legislators, both 
ancient and modern, have been aware, and have seen 
the necessity of maintaining a sense of religion among 
their fellow-citizens, as the most powerful of all sup- 
ports to the political order. " Ut aliqua in vita formido 
improbis esset posita, apud inferose jusmodi quaedam 
ill i antiqui supplicia impiis constitute esse voluerunt; 
quod videlicet intelligebant his remotis, non esse mor- 
tem ipsam pertimescendam."* They, on the other 



* Cic Cat!!. IV. " For it was on this account that the ancients invented 
those infernal punishments of the dead, to keep the wicked under some 
awe in this life, who, without them, would have no dread of death itself." 

With these views, it is not surprising that some of the wisest of the 
heathen writers should have expressed themselves so very strongly con- 
cerning the guilt incurred by those who, by exposing to ridicule the fabu- 
lous mythology which formed the popular creed among their contempora- 
ries, endangered the authority of those moral principles which were iden- 
tified with it in the vulgar belief. There is good reason for thinking that 
the secret communicated to the initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries was 
the unity of God ; a truth too sublime to be disclosed at once to the unin- 
formed multitude, as it struck at the root of all those fables which were 
incorporated with their habits of thinking and feeling on the most impor- 
tant subjects. On this supposition we have a satisfactory explanation of a 

28* 



330 DUTIES TO GOD. 

hand, who have labored to loosen the bands of society, 
have found it necessary to begin with perverting or de- 
stroying the natural sentiments of the mind with respect 
to a future retribution. In ages when the religious 
principles of the multitude were too firmly riveted to be 
entirely eradicated, they have inculcated theological 
dogmas subversive of moral distinctions, as in the case 
of the antinomian teachers during our own civil wars. 
In other and more recent instances, they have avow- 
edly attempted to establish a system of atheism. So 
true is the old observation, that the extremes of super- 
stition and of infidelity unite in their tendency, and so 
completely verified are now the apprehensions which 
were expressed eighty years ago by Bishop Butler, that 
the spirit of irreligion (which, in his time, was begin- 
ning to grow fashionable among the higher ranks.) 
might produce some time or other political disorders 
similar to those which arose from religious fanaticism 
in the preceding century. " Is there no danger that all 
this may raise somewhat like the levelling spirit upon 
atheistical principles, which, in the last age, prevailed 
upon enthusiastic ones, — not to speak of the possi- 
bility that different sorts of people may unite in it upon 
these contrary principles ? " * 

A prediction by a later writer of genius and discern- 
ment, and one well acquainted with the principles and 
manners of the world, is not unworthy of attention in 
the present times, in which we have seen it very re- 
markably verified in numberless instances. " I shall 
say nothing at present of the lower ranks of mankind. 
Though they have not yet got into the fashion of 

noted passage in Horace, between which and the preceding lines it seems 
not easy at first to trace any connection. 

Est et fideli tuta silentio 
Merces. Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum 
Vulgarit arcana?, sub isdem 
Sit trabibus, fragilemve mecum 
Solvat phaselum. 

Carm. Lib. III. Ode IL 

* Sermon preached before the House of Lords, January 30, 1 740. 



DUTIES TO GOB. 33V 

laughing at religion, and treating it with scorn and 
contempt, and I believe are too serious a set of crea- 
tures ever to come into it, yet we are not to imagine 
but that the contempt it is held in by those whose ex- 
amples they are too apt to imitate will in time utterly 
shake their principles, and render them, if not as pro- 
fane, at least as corrupt, as their betters. When this 
event happens, and we begin to feel the effects of it in 
our dealings with them, those who have done the mis- 
chief will find the necessity at last of turning religious 
in their own defence, and (for want of a better princi- 
ple) to set an example of piety and good morals for 
their own interest and convenience." * 

Nor is it merely in restraining men from grosser out- 
rages, that a sense of religion operates as a compulsory 
law. Without a secret, impression (of which it is im- 
possible that the human mind can divest itself), that 
there is at all times an invisible witness of our thoughts, 
it is probable that the virtue of the best men would of- 
ten yield to temptation. Even amidst the darkness of 
the heathen world, Xenophon had recourse to this im- 
pression to account for the inflexible integrity of Soc- 
rates, when he sat as one of the judges in the celebrat- 
ed trial of the naval commanders. " Having taken," 
says Xenophon, " as was customary, the senatorial oath, 
by which he bound himself to act in all things conform- 
ably to the laws, and arriving in his turn to be presi- 
dent of the assembly of the people, he boldly refused to 
give his suffrage to the iniquitous sentence which con- 
demned the nine captains, being neither intimidated by 
the menaces of the great, nor the fury of the people, 
but steadily preferring the sanctity of an oath to the 
safety of his person. For he was persuaded the gods 
watched over the affairs of men, in a way altogether 
different from what the vulgar imagined ; for while 
these limited their knowledge to some particulars only, 
Socrates, on the contrary, extended it to all, firmly 
Dersuaded that they are everywhere present, and that 

* Sterne's Sermons. 



332 DUTIES TO GOD. 

every word, every action, nay, even our most retired de« 
liberations, were open to their view." * 

In the last place, a sense of religion, where it is sin- 
cere, will necessarily be attended with a complete res- 
ignation of our own will to that of the Deity, as it 
teaches us to regard every event, even the most af* 
flicting, as calculated to promote beneficent purposes, 
which we are unable to comprehend, and to promote, 
finally, the perfection and happiness of our own nature. 
This is Ihe best, and, indeed, the only rational founda- 
tion of fortitude. Nay, it may be safely affirmed (as 
Socrates long ago observed in the Pliczdo of Plato), 
that whoever founds his fortitude on any thing else is 
only valiant through fear. In other words, he exposes 
himself to danger, merely from a regard to the opinion 
of others, and, of consequence, wants that internal prin- 
ciple of heroism which can alone arm the mind with 
patience under those misfortunes which it is condemned 
to bear in solitude, or under sorrows which prudence 
conceals from the public eye. But to the man who be- 
lieves that every thing is ordered for the best, and that 
his existence and happiness are in the hands of a Being 
who watches over him with the care of a parent, the 
difficulties and dangers of life only serve to call forth 
the latent powers of the soul, by reminding him of the 
prize for which he combats, and of that beneficent 
Providence by which the conflict was appointed. 

Safe in the hands of one disposing Power, 
Or in the natal or the mortal hour. 

IV. Religion the First and Chief Branch of Moral 
Duty.] The view which I have given of religion, as 
forming the first and chief branch of moral duty, and 
as contributing in its turn most powerfully to promote 
the practice of every virtue, is equally consonant to the 
spirit of the Sacred Writings, and to the most obvious 
dictates of reason and conscience ; and accordingly it 
is sanctioned by the authority of all those philosophers 

* Manor. Lib. I. Cap. I. 



DUTIES TO GOD. 33$ 

of antiquity who devoted their talents to the improve- 
ment and happiness of mankind. " It should never be 
thought," says Plato in one of his Dialogues, " that 
there is any branch of human virtue of greater impor- 
tance than piety towards the Deity." The chief article 
of the unwritten law mentioned by Socrates is, " that 
the gods ought to be worshipped." " This," he says, 
" is acknowledged everywhere, and received by all men 
as the first command." * And to the same purpose 
Cicero, in the first book of his Offices, places in the first 
rank of duties those we owe to the immortal gods. 
" In ipsa communitate sunt gradus officiorum ex qui- 
bus, quid cuique praestet, intelligi possit : ut prima Diis 
immortalibus ; secunda, patriae ; tertia, parentibus, de- 
inceps gradatim reliquis debeantur." f 

The elevation of mind which some of the most illus- 
trious characters of antiquity derived from their relig- 
ions principles, however imperfect and erroneous, and 
the weight which these principles gave them in their 
public and political capacity, are remarked by many 
ancient writers ; and such, I apprehend, will always be 
found to be the case when the personal importance of 
the individual rests on the basis of public opinion. 
" But he," says Plutarch, " who was most conversant 
with Pericles, and most contributed to give him a grand- 
eur of mind, and to make his high spirit for governing 
the popular assemblies more weighty and authorita- 
tive, — in a word, who exalted his ideas, and raised, 
at the same time, the dignity of his demeanour, — the 
person who did this was Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, 
whom the people of that age reverenced as the first 
who made mind or intellect (in opposition to chance) a 
principle in the formation and government of the uni- 
verse." $ 



* Xen. Memor. Lib. IV. Cap. IV. 

t Lib. I. Cap. ult. " In society itself our duties are of different degrees, 
in which tbe proper order of preference is readily understood: — first 01 
all, our duties to the immortal gods; secondly, to our country; thirdly 
to our parents, and, after them, to other men in their several gradations." 

\ Vit. Peric. 



334 DUTIES TO GOD. 

The extraordinary respect which the Romans, during 
their period of greatest glory, entertained for religion, 
(false as their own system was in its mythological 
foundations, and erroneous in many of its practical 
tendencies,) has been often taken notice of as one of 
the principal sources of their private and public virtues. 
" The Spaniards," says Cicero, " exceed us in numbers; 
the Gauls in the glory of war ; but we surpass all na- 
tions in that wisdom by which we have learned that 
all things are governed and directed by the immortal 
gods." * 

In the latter periods of their history, this reverence 
for religion, together with the other virtues which gave 
them the empire of the world, was in a great measure 
lost ; and we continually find their orators and histo- 
rians drawing a melancholy contrast between the de- 
generacy of their manners and those of their ancestors. 
In the account which Livy has given of the consulate 
of Q. Cincinnatus, he mentions an attempt which the 
tribunes made to persuade the people that they were 
not bound by their military oath to follow the consul 
to the field, because they had taken that oath when he 
was a private man. But, however agreeable this doc- 
trine might be to their inclinations, and however strong- 
ly recommended to them by the sanction of their own 
popular magistrates, we find that their reverence for 
the religion of an oath led them to treat the doctrine 
as nothing better than a cavil. Livy's reflection on this 
occasion is remarkable. " Nondum haec, quae nunc tenet 
seculum, negligentia Deum venerat: nee interpretando 
sibi quisque jusjurandum leges aptas faciebat, sed suos 
potius mores ad ea accommodabat." f 

* Orat de Harusp. Respon., Cap. IX. 

t Lib. III. Cap. XX. " But that disregard of the gods, which prevails in 
the present age, had not then taken place : nor did every one. by his own 
interpretations, accommodate oaths and the laws to his particular views, 
but rather adapted his practice to them." 



DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 335 



CHAPTER II. 

OF TILE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OUR FELLOW- 
CREATURES. 

Under this title it is not proposed to give a complete 
enumeration of our social duties, but only to point out 
some of the most important, chiefly with a view to 
show the imperfections of those systems of morals 
which attempt to resolve the whole of virtue into one 
particular principle. Among these, that which resolves 
virtue into benevolence is undoubtedly the most amia- 
ble ; but even this system will appear, from the follow- 
ing remarks, not only to be inconsistent with truth, but 
to lead to dangerous consequences. 



Section I. 

OF BENEVOLENCE. 

I. Hutcheson resolves all Virtue into Benevolence.] 
Benevolence is so important a branch of virtue, that it 
has been supposed by some moralists to constitute the 
whole of it. According to these writers, good-will to 
mankind is the only immediate object of moral appro- 
bation ; and the obligation of all our other moral duties 
arises entirely from their apprehended tendency to pro- 
mote the happiness of society. 

Among the most eminent partisans of this system 
in modern times, Mr. Smith mentions particularly Dr. 
Ralph Cudworth, Dr. Henry More, and Mr. John Smith 
of Cambridge ; " but of all its patrons," he observes, 
" ancient or modern, Dr. Francis Hutcheson was un- 
doubtedly beyond all comparison the most acute, the 
most distinct, the most philosophical, and, what is of 
the greatest consequence of all, the soberest and most 
judicious." * 

* Tfieory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. II. Chap. III. 



336 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN- 

In favor of this system, Mr. Smith acknowledges that 
there are many appearances in human nature which at 
first sight seem strongly to support it ; and of some of 
these appearances Dr. Hutcheson avails himself with 
much acuteness and plausibility. First, whenever, in 
any action supposed to proceed from benevolent affec- 
tions, some other motive is discovered, our sense of the 
merit of this action is just so far diminished as this 
motive, is believed to have influenced it. Secondly, 
when those actions, on the contrary, which are com- 
monly supposed to proceed from a selfish motive are 
discovered to have arisen from a benevolent one, it 
generally enhances our sense of their merit. Lastly, 
it was urged by Dr. Hutcheson, that, in all casuistical 
disputes concerning the rectitude of conduct, the ulti- 
mate appeal is uniformly made to utility. In the later 
debates, for example, about passive obedience and the 
right of resistance, the sole point in controversy among 
men of sense was, whether universal submission would 
probably be attended with greater evils than temporary 
insurrection when privileges w T ere invaded. Whether 
what, upon the whole, tended most to the happiness of 
mankind was not also morally good, was never once 
made a question. 

Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive 
which could bestow upon any action the character of 
virtue, the greater the benevolence which was evidenced 
by any action, the greater the praise which must be- 
long to it. 

In directing all our actions to promote the greatest 
possible good, — in submitting all inferior affections to 
the desire of the general happiness of mankind, — in 
regarding one's self as but one of the many, whose 
prosperity was to be pursued no further than it was 
consistent with, or conducive to, that of the whole, — 
consisted the perfection of virtue. 

Dr. Hutcheson held, further, that self-love was a prin- 
ciple which could never be virtuous in any degree or 
in an) direction. This maxim he carried so far aa 
to assert, that even a regard to the pleasure of self 



BENEVOLENCE. 



337 



approbation, to the comfortable applauses of our own 
consciences, diminishes the merit of a benevolent ac- 
tion. " In the common judgments of mankind, how- 
ever," says Mr. Smith, " this regard to the approbation 
of our own minds is so far from being considered as 
what can in any respect diminish the virtue of any ac- 
tion, that it is rather looked upon as the sole motive 
which deserves the appellation of virtuous." 

Of the truth and correctness of these principles Dr, 
Hutcheson was so fully convinced, that, in conformity 
to them, he has offered some algebraical formulas for 
computing mathematically the morality of actions. Of 
this very extraordinary attempt, the following axioms, 
which he premises to his formulas, may serve as a 
sufficient specimen. 

1. The moral importance of any agent, or the quan- 
tity of public good produced by him, is in a compound 
ratio of his benevolence and abilities, or M (moment of 
good) = B X A. 

2. In like manner, the moment of private good or 
interest produced by any person to himself is in a 
compound ratio of his self-love and ability, or 1= S 
X A. 

3. When, in comparing the virtue of two agents, the 
abilities are equal, the moment of public good pro- 
duced by them in like circumstances is as the benevo 
lence, or M = B X 1. 

4. When benevolence in two agents is equal, and 
other circumstances alike, the moment of public good 
is as the abilities, or M= A X 1. 

5. The virtue, then, of agents, or their benevolence, 
is always directly as the moment of good produced in 
like circumstances, and inversely as their abilities, or 
B = ^.* 

II. Objections to this Theory.] As Dr. Hutcheson's 
example in the use of these formulas has not been fol- 

* Hutcheson's Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and FirfiM, 
Treatise II. Sect. III. 

29 



*39 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

(owed by any of his successors, it is unnecessary to 
employ any arguments to expose the absurdity of 
this unsuccessful innovation in the usual language 
of ethics.* It is of more consequence to direct our 
attention to the substance of the doctrine which it 
was the great object of the ingenious author to es- 
tablish. 

And, in the first place, the necessary and obvious 
consequences to which this account of virtue leads 
seem to furnish a satisfactory proof of its unsoundness. 
For if the merit of an action depends on no other cir- 
cumstance than the quantity of good intended by the 
agent, then the rectitude of an action can in no case 
be influenced by the mutual relations of the parties ; 
— a conclusion contradicted by the universal judgment 
of mankind in favor of the paramount obligation of 
various other duties. It is sufficient to mention the 
obligations of gratitude, of veracity, and of justice.f 
Unless we admit these duties to be immediately obliga- 
tory, we must admit the maxim, that a good end may 
sanctify any means necessary for its attainment; or, 
in other words, that it would be lawful for us to dis- 
pense with the obligations of veracity and justice when- 
ever, by doing so, we had a prospect of promoting any 
of the essential interests of society. 

With respect to this maxim, I would only -ask, Is it 
probable, a priori, that the wise and beneficent Author 
of the universe should have left the conduct of such a 
fallible and short-sighted creature as man to be regu- 
lated by no other principle than the private opinion of 
each individual with respect to the expediency of his 
actions ? Or, in other words, by the conjectures which 
the individual might form on the good or evil resulting, 
on the whole, from an endless train of future contin- 



* Dr. Hutcheson's attempt to introduce the language of mathematics 
into morals gave occasion to a valuable Essay on Quantity, by the late Dr. 
Keid. This essay may be found in the Philosophical Transactions of the 
Royal Society of London for the year 1748. [It is reprinted in Sir W. 
Hamilton's edition of Dr. Reid's Works.] 

t See Butler's Essay on the Nature of Virtue, at the end of his Analogy. 



BENEVOLENCE. 339 

gencies ? Were this the case, the opinions of mankind 
concerning the rules of morality would be as various 
as their judgments concerning the probable issue of the 
most doubtful and difficult determination in politics 
Numberless cases might be fancied, in which a person 
would not only claim merit to himself, but actually pos- 
sess it, in consequence of actions which are generally 
regarded with indignation and abhorrence. Even men 
of the soundest judgment and most penetrating sagaci- 
ty might frequently be led to the perpetration of enor- 
mities, if they had no other standard of right and 
wrong but what they derived from their own uncertain 
anticipations of futurity. And when we consider how 
small the number of such men is, in comparison with 
those whose understandings are perverted by the prej- 
udices of education, and by their own selfish passions, 
it is easy to see what a scene of anarchy the world 
would become. Surely, if the Deity intended the hap- 
piness of his creatures, he would not build the order 
(I may say the existence) of society on so precarious a 
foundation. And here it deserves particularly to be 
mentioned, that one of the arguments commonly pro- 
duced in support of the scheme is drawn from the 
benevolence of God. Benevolence, we are told, in- 
duced the Deity to call the universe into existence, and 
benevolence is the great law of his government; and 
as virtue in man must consist in conformity to the will 
of God, in imitating his moral perfections to the utmost 
of our power, it is concluded that virtue and benevo- 
lence are the same. But the premises here lead to a 
conclusion directly opposite ; for if the happiness of 
mankind be the great end for which they are brought 
into being, it is presumable that the rules of their con- 
duct are of such a nature as to be obvious to the 
capacities of all men of sincere and well-disposed 
minds. Accordingly, we find, (and the fact is in a 
peculiar degree worthy of attention,) that, while the 
theory of ethics involves some of the most abstruse 
questions which have ever employed the human facul- 
ties, the moral judgments and moral feelings of the 



340 DUTIES TO Ol/R FELLOW-MEN. 

most distant ages and nations, with respect to all 
the most essential duties of life, are one and the 
same.* 

The reasonableness of the foregoing conclusion will 
be much confirmed, if we consider how much the hap- 
piness of mankind is often left to depend on the will 
of one or of a few individuals. The best men, in such 
circumstances, when invested with absolute power 
might -be rendered curses to the world by sanguine 
plans of beneficence ; and the ambitious and designing 
would be supplied with specious pretences to justify the 
most cruel and tyrannical measures. In truth, it is this 
very plea of benevolent intention w T hich has been em- 
ployed to palliate, or rather to sanctify, the conduct of 
the greatest scourges of the human race. It is this 
very plea which, in former times, lighted up the fires 
of the Inquisition, and which, in our own age, has fur- 
nished a pretence for outrages against all the principles 
of justice and all the feelings of humanity.f 

It may perhaps be urged, that the principle of be- 
nevolence, or a regard to utility, would lead to an in- 
variable adherence to the rules of veracity, gratitude, 
and justice, because in this way more good is produced 
on the whole than could be obtained by any occasional 
deviations from them ; that it is this idea of utility 
which first leads us to approve of these virtues ; and 
that afterwards habit, or the association of ideas, 
makes us observe their rules without thinking of con- 
sequences. But is not this to adopt that mode of rea- 
soning which Hutcheson censures so severely in the 
selfish philosophers ? According to them, we labor to 
promote the public prosperity, because we believe our 
own to be intimately connected with it. They ac- 
knowledge, at the same time, that we often make a 



* " Si quid rectissimum sit quserimus, perspicuum est. Si quid maxime 
expediat, obscurum." — Cic. Ep. ad Earn., IV. 2. 

t See the remarks on Paley's scheme of morals in Gisborne's Principle* 
of Moral Philosophy, where these arguments are urged with great force 
[They are replied to by Wainewright, in his Vindication of Dr. Paley* 
Theory of Morals, Chap. II.] 



BENEVOLENCE. 341 

real sacrifice of private to public advantage, and that 
we often exert ourselves in the public service without 
once thinking of our own interest. But all this they 
explain by habits and associations, which operate in 
this case as they do in the case of the miser, who, 
although his attachment to money was originally 
founded on the consideration of its uses, yet contin- 
ues to accumulate wealth without once thinking of 
the ends to which it is subservient, and indeed long 
after he is able to enjoy those comforts which it can 
purchase. 

Now, as I have said, the fallaciousness of this mode 
of reasoning has been pointed out by Dr. Hutcheson 
with great clearness and force ; and the arguments he 
employs against it may with great justice be turned 
against himself. In general, the safest rule we can 
follow in our inquiries concerning the principles of 
human conduct is to acquiesce, in the first instance, 
in the plain and obvious appearance of facts ; and if 
these conclusions are inaccurate, to correct them grad- 
ually, in proportion as a more attentive examination 
of our subject discovers to us the prejudices which 
education and accidental associations have blended 
with the truth. It is at least a presumption in favor 
of any system concerning the mind, that it falls in with 
the natural apprehensions of mankind in all countries 
and ages ; — and I believe it will commonly be found 
that these are the systems which, in the progress of 
human reason, are justified by the most profound and 
enlightened philosophy. I state this observation with 
the greater confidence, as it coincides with the follow- 
ing admirable remark of Mr. Hume, — an author who 
had certainly no interest in inculcating such a doctrine, 
as he seems to have paid very little attention to it in 
the course of his own speculations. 

" The case is not the same in moral philosophy as in 
physics. Many an hypothesis in nature, contrary to 
first appearances, has been found, on more accurate 
scrutiny, solid and satisfactory. Instances of this kind 
are so frequent, that a judicious as well as witty phi 
29* 



342 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

losopher* has ventured to affirm, if there be more than 
one way in which a phenomenon may be produced, 
that there is a general presumption for its arising from 
the causes which are the least obvious and familiar 
But the presumption always lies on the other side in 
all inquiries concerning the origin of our passions, and 
of the internal operations of the human mind. The 
simplest and most obvious cause which can there be 
assigned for any phenomenon is probably the true one. 
When a philosopher, in the explication of his system, 
is obliged to have recourse to some very intricate and 
refined reflections, and to suppose them essential to the 
production of any passion or emotion, we have reason 
to be extremely on our guard against so fallacious an 
hypothesis. The affections are not susceptible of any 
impression from the refinements of reason or imagina- 
tion ; and it is always found, that a vigorous exertion 
of the latter faculty necessarily, from the limited ca- 
pacity of the human mind, destroys all activity in the 
former. Our predominant motive or interest is indeed 
frequently concealed from ourselves when it is mingled 
and confounded with other motives, which the mind, 
from vanity and self-conceit, is desirous of supposing 
more prevalent ; but there is no instance that a con- 
cealment of this nature has ever arisen from the ab- 
struseness and intricacy of the motive. A man that 
has lost a friend and patron may flatter himself that 
all his grief arises from generous sentiments, without 
any mixture of narrow or interested considerations ; 
but a man that grieves for a valuable friend who needed 
his patronage and protection, how can we suppose that 
his passionate tenderness arises from some metaphysi- 
cal regards to a self-interest which has no foundation 
in reality ? We may as well imagine that minute 
wheels and springs, like those of a watch, give motiou 
to a wagon, as account for the origin of passion from 
such abstruse reflections." f 



* Fontenelle. 

t Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix II, 



BENEVOLENCE. 343 

TIL The same Objections applicable to the Doctrine of 
Utility, as held by Hume, Godwin, and Paley.] The re- 
marks which I have now made with respect to Dr. 
Hutcheson's philosophy are applicable, with some slight 
alterations, to a considerable variety of moral systems 
which have been offered to the world under very differ- 
ent forms, but which agree with him and with each oth- 
er in deriving the practical rules of virtuous conduct 
from considerations of utility. All of these systems 
are but modifications of the old doctrine which resolves 
the whole of virtue into benevolence. 

This theory of utility (which is of a very ancient 
date, and which in modern times has derived much ce- 
lebrity from the genius of Mr. Hume) has been revived 
more recently by Mr. Godwin, and by the late Dr. Pa-, 
ley. Widely as these two writers differ in the source 
whence they derive their rule of conduct, and the sanc- 
tions by which they enforce its observance, they are per- 
fectly agreed about its paramount authority over every 
other principle of action. " Whatever is expedient" 
says Dr. Paley, " is right. It is the utility of any mor- 
al rule alone which constitutes the obligation of it." * 
" But then it must be expedient on the whole, at the 
long run, in all its effects, collateral and remote, as well 
as those which are immediate and direct, as it is obvi- 
ous that, in computing consequences, it makes no dif- 
ference in what way or at what distance they ensue." f 

* Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Book II. Chap. VI. 

t Ibid. Chap. VIII. In another part of this work, Book VI. Chap. 
XII., Dr. Paley explicitly asserts that every moral rule is liable to be su- 
perseded in particular cases on the ground of expediency. " Moral Phi- 
losophy cannot pronounce that any rule of morality is so rigid as to bend 
to no exceptions ; nor, on the other hand, can she comprise these excep- 
tions within any previous description. She confesses that the obligation 
of every law depends upon its ultimate utility; that, this utility having a 
Suite and determinate value, situations may be feigned, and consequently 
may possibly arise, in which the general tendency is outweighed by the 
enormity of the particular mischief." In such an event, ultimate utility 
would render it as much an act of duty to break the rule as it is on other 
occasions to observe it. 

[Some have contended that Paley's criterion of right is not liable to the 
9 same objections with that of other selfish systems, because he does not 
make it turn on a calculation of the probable consequences of the particu- 
lar action in hand, but on what is called " the doctrine of general cons© 



344 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Mr. Godwin has nowhere expressed himself on this 
fundamental question of practical ethics in terms more 
decided and unqualified. 

Of this theory of utility, so strongly recommended 
to some by the powerful talents of Hume, and to others 
by the well-merited popularity of Paley, the most satis- 
factory of all refutations is to be found in the work of 
Mi*. Godwin. It is unnecessary to inquire how far the 
practical lessons he has inculcated are logically inferred 
from his fundamental principle ; for although I appre- 



quences." " The general consequence of any action may be estimated," 
he says, " by asking what would be the consequence if the same sort of ac 
tions were generally permitted." — Moral Philosophy \ Book II. Chap. VIII 
But to this Coleridge, in The Friend, Vol. II. Essay XI., replies : — 

1. " Here, as in all other calculations, the result depends on that faculty 
of the soul in the degrees of which men most vary from each other, and. 
which is itself most affected by accidental advantages or disadvantages of 
education, natural talent, and acquired knowledge, — the faculty, I mean, 
of foresight and systematic comprehension. But surely morality, which is 
of equal importance to all men, ought to be grounded, if possible, in that 
part of our nature which in all men may and ought to be the same : in the 
conscience and the common sense." 

2. " This criterion confounds morality with law ; and when the author 
adds, that in all probability the Divine justice will be regulated in the 
final judgment by a similar rule, he draws away the attention from the 
will, that is, from the inward motives and impulses which constitute the es- 
sence of morality, to the outward act, and thus changes the virtue command- 
ed by the Gospel into the mere legality which was to be enlivened by it. 
One of the most persuasive, if not one of the strongest, arguments for a 
future state rests on the belief, that, although by the necessity of things our 
outward and temporal welfare must be regulated by our outward actions, 
which alone can be the objects and guides of human law, there must yet 
needs come a juster and more appropriate sentence hereafter, in which our 
intentions will be considered, and our happiness and misery made to accord 
with the grounds of our actions. Our fellow-creatures can only judge 
what we are by what we do ; but in the eye of our Maker what we do is 
of no worth, except as it flows from what we are." 

3. " The criterion is also nugatory. The individual is to imagine what 
the general consequences would be, all other things remaining the same, if 
all men were to act as he is about to act. 1 scarcely need remind the read- 
er what a source of self-delusion and sophistry is here opened to a mind 
in a state of temptation. Will it not say to itself, ' I know that all men 
will not act so ; and the immediate good consequences, which I shall ob- 
tain, are real, while the bad consequences are imaginary and improbable' 1 
When the foundations of morality have once been laid in the outward con- 
sequences, it will be in vain to recall to the mind what the consequences 
would be were all men to reason in the same way ; for the very excuse o. 
this mind to itself is, that neither its action nor its reasoning is likely to 
have any consequences at all, its immediate object excepted." 



BENEVOLENCE. 345 

hend much might be objected to these, even on his own 
hypothesis, yet if such be the conclusions to which, in 
the judgment of so acute a reasoner, it appeared to 
lead with demonstrative evidence, nothing further is 
requisite to illustrate the practical tendency of a sys- 
tem which, absolving men from the obligations imposed 
on them with so commanding an authority by the mor- 
al constitution of human nature, abandons every indi- 
vidual to the guidance of his own narrow views cor- 
cerning the complicated interests of political society. 



4. " But suppose the mind in its sanest state. How can it possibly form 
a notion of the nature of an action considered as indefinitely multiplied, 
unless it has previously a distinct notion of the nature of the single action 
itself which is the multiplicand ? If I conceive a crown multiplied a hun- 
dredfold, the simple crown enables me to understand what a hundred 
crowns are ; but how can the notion hundred teach me what a crown is ? " 

5. "I confess myself unable to divine any possible use, or even meaning, 
in this doctrine of general consequences, unless it be that in all our ac- 
tions we are bound to consider the effect of our example, and to guard as 
much as possible against the hazard of their being misunderstood. I will 
not slaughter a lamb, or drown a litter of kittens, in the presence of my 
child of four years old, because the child cannot understand my action, 
but will understand that his father has inflicted pain, and taken away life 
from beings that had never offended him. All this is true, and no man in 
his senses ever thought otherwise. But methinks it is strange to state 
that as a criterion of morality which is no more than an accessory aggra- 
vation of an action bad in its own nature, or a ground of caution as to the 
mode and time in which we are to do or suspend what is in itself good 
and innocent." 

6. " The duty of setting a good example is no doubt a most important 
duty ; but the example is good or bad, necessary or unnecessary, accord- 
ing as the action may be which has a chance of being imitated. I once 
knew a small, but (in outward circumstances at least) respectable congre- 
gation, four fifths of whom professed that they went to church entirely for 
the example's sake ; in other words, to cheat each other and act a common 
lie ! These rational Christians had not considered that example may in- 
crease the good or evil of an action, but can never constitute either." 

7. "To the objection, that the doctrine of general consequences was 
stated as the criterion of the action, not of the agent, I might answer, tlut 
the author himself had in some measure justified me in not noticing this 
distinction, by holding forth the probability, that the Supreme Judge will 
proceed by the same rule. The agent may then safely be included in the 
action, if both here and hereafter the action only and its general conse- 
quents will be attended to. But my main ground of justification is, that 
the distinction itself is merely logical, — not real and vital. The character 
of the agent is determined by his view of the action ; and that system of 
morality is alone true and suited to human nature, which unites the inten- 
tion and the motive, the warmth and the light, in one and the same act of 
mi^d."] 



346 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Among the practical consequences which Dr. Paley 
deduces from the same principle, there are some which 
to my mind are not less revolting than those of Mr. 
Godwin. Such, for example, is the argument by 
which he controverts the received maxim of criminal 
jurisprudence, that it is better for ten guilty persons to 
escape than for one innocent man to suffer. But on this 
subject I need not enlarge. The sophistry, and, I am 
sorry to add, the reckless inhumanity displayed in this 
part of Paley 's work, have been triumphantly exposed 
by that great and good man, Sir Samuel Romilly ; — 
a man whom, long before his talents and worth were 
known to the public, I admired and loved, and whose 
memory I shall never cease to revere.* 



* Observations on the Criminal Law of England. See, in particular, 
Note D. 

[For some account of the writings and influence of Godwin, see the 
thirty-sixth Lecture of Professor Smyth, On ike French Revolution. He be- 
gins his notice by observing, with reference to the time of the first French 
Revolution, — "I would wish to afford you some general notion of the 
sort of mental intoxication which then prevailed among those who should 
have been the guides and instructors of mankind. And looking round for 
this purpose, I shall select from the rest, as a memorable specimen of the 
whole, the once celebrated work of Mr. Godwin. The influence of the 
work I can myself remember. In any ordinary state of the world, it must 
have fallen lifeless from the press : highly metaphysical, continually run- 
ning into general abstractions, into disquisitions never ending, still begin- 
ning, nothing was ever less fitted to attract a reader than the repulsive 
Inquiry concerning Political Justice ; and if the state had not been out of 
joint, most assuredly scarce a reader would have been found. Some years 
after, when the success of the work had been established, Mr. Burke was 
asked whether he had seen it. ' Why, yes, I have seen it,' was the answer, 
'and a mighty stupid-looking book it is.' No two words could better have 
described it. The late excellent Sir Samuel Romilly, who had then leisure 
to read every thing, told a friend who had never heard of it, that there had 

i'ust appeared a book by far the most absurd that had ever come within 
lis knowledge ; this was the work of Godwin. Mrs. Barbauld, also, who 
at length by the progress of its doctrines was compelled to look at it, de- 
clared that what was good in the book was chiefly taken from Hume ; that 
it was ' borrowed sense and original nonsense.' The work, however, pros- 
pered ; this ' original nonsense ' was then in great request, and at a high 
premium. Mr. Godwin had his admirers, had his school ; there were*God- 
winians in those days, as well as Whigs and Tories, more particularly in 
the Inns of Court, and among the young lawyers ; and this borrower of 
sense and retailer of nonsense, this dreamer of dreams and seer of visions, 
was suddenly transformed from a Dissenting clergyman, dissatisfied with 
his profession, and unknowing and unknown, into a person pointed at, as 



BENEVOLENCE. 347 

That the practice of veracity and justice, and of all 
our other duties, is useful to mankind, is acknowledged 

he walked in the metropolis of England, as a disturber of empires and a re- 
former of the world." 

According to Mr. Godwin, every thing is to be referred to justice. Gen- 
eral utility is the criterion of justice, and one of his extravagances consists 
in maintaining that all private affections and personal obligations are to be 
sacrificed to it. Professor Smyth goes on : — 

" ' But justice,' says Mr. Godwin, 'is no respecter of persons' ; — very 
well. The illustrious Bishop of Cambray, for instance, was of more worth 
than his valet, and there are few of us, says Mr. Godwin, that would hesi- 
tate to pronounce, if the Bishop's palace were in flames, which of the two 
should be preserved. But again : — 

" ' Suppose I had been myself the valet,' says Mr. Godwin ; ' I ought 
to have chosen to die, rather than Fenelon should have died. To have 
done otherwise would have been a breach of justice.' Somewhat alarm- 
ing this, but let it pass; — very well. Again: — 'Suppose,' says Mr. 
Godwin, ' the valet had been my brother, or my father, or my benefactor ; — 
this would not alter the truth of the proposition : the life of Fenelon 
would still be more valuable than that of the valet ; and justice, pure, una- 
dulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valua- 
ble ; justice would have taught me to save the life of Fenelon at the ex- 
pense of the other. What magic is there in the pronoun my to overturn 
the decision of impartial truth 1 My brother, or my father, may be a fool 
or a profligate, malicious, lying, or dishonest. If they be, of what conse- 
quence is it that they are mine ? ' 

"This, then, was the result that was wanted. — filial duty at an end. 
The poor father was to see his son helping another person out of the 
flames, and be left himself to perish; — all upon the principle of justice, 
the foundation of all morality. Mathematicians, when their reasonings 
conduct them to some unnatural position, — that the greater is equal to 
the less, or the less to the greater, — immediately stop short, produce their 
phrase quod est absurdum, and think it high time to begin again." 

The logic by which Godwin reasons away the obligation that exists be- 
tween parent and child reminds Professor Smyth of the following passage 
in Tristram Shandy : — 

" In that most entertaining performance, the lawyers are supposed dis- 
cussing a law question before Yorick and my Uncle Toby. ' In the reign 
of Edward VI,' says one of them, ' in the famous case, commonly known 
by the name of the Duke of Suffolk's case, as it was a gi'eat cause, and 
much depending upon its issue, and as many causes of great property 
were likely to be decided in times to come by the precedent to be then 
made, the most learned, as well in the laws of this realm as in the civil 
law, were consulted together ; and not only the temporal lawyers, but the 
church lawyers, the jurisconsulti, the jurisprudentes, the civilians, the ad- 
vocates, the commissaries, the judges of the consistory and prerogative 
courts of Canterbury and York, with the Master of the Faculties, were all 
unanimously of opinion, that the mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, was not 
of kin to her child.' 

" 'And what said the Duchess of Suffolk to it? ' said my Uncle Toby. 
This was an unexpected question, it seems ; and as nothing could do 
made of it, the lawyers voted the order of the day, and went on with 



348 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

by moralists of all descriptions ; and there is good rea- 
son for believing, that, if a person saw all the conse- 
quences of his actions, he would perceive that an ad- 
herence to their rules is useful and advantageous on 
the whole, even in those cases in which his limited 
views incline him to think otherwise. The same ob- 
servation may be applied to self-interest, that the most 
effectual way of promoting it is to observe religiously 
the obligations of morality ; and these are both very 
striking instances of that unity of design which is con- 
spicuous alike in the moral and natural world. This 
makes it an easy matter for a philosopher to give a 
plausible explanation of all our duties from one prin- 
ciple, because the general tendency of all of them is to 
determine us to the same course of life. That benevo- 
lence may be the sole principle of action in the Deity 
is possible (although when we affirm that it is so we 
go beyond our depth) ; but the case is obviously very 
different with mankind. If the hypothesis be just with 
respect to the Deity, we must suppose that he enjoined 
the duties of veracity and justice, not on account of 
their intrinsic rectitude, but of their utility. But still, 
with respect to man they are indispensable laws, for he 
has an immediate perception of their rectitude. And 
indeed, if he had not, but were left to deduce their 
rectitude from the consequences which they have a 
tendency to produce, we may venture to affirm that 
there would not be enough of virtue left in the world 
to hold society together. 

It is remarked by Mr. Smith, in a passage which 

tlieir law argument: this, when they had finished it, left the Duchess, as 
before, not of kin to her own child. 

" ' Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly,' quoth my 
Uncle Toby, 'be some manner of consanguinity between the Duchess of 
Suffolk and her son.' 
" ' The vulgar are of the same opinion to this hour,' quoth Yorick" 
There is a remarkable coincidence in some of the definitions and specu- 
lations of Edwards and the Hopkinsian divines in this country, and those oi 
Godwin. For references, see Ely's Contrast between Culvinism and Hop- 
kinsianism, Chap. XL See likewise Robert Hall's celebrated sermon 
Modern Infidelity considered with respect to its Influence on Society / and Dr 
Parr's Spital Sermon, especially the Notes. — Et>.] 



BENEVOLENCE. 849 

cannot be too frequently recalled to the reader's atten- 
tion, that " although, in accounting for the operations 
of bodies, we never fail to distinguish the efficient from 
the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we 
are very apt to confound these two different things with 
one another. When by natural principles we are led to 
advance those ends which a refined and enlightened 
reason would recommend to us, we are very apt to im- 
pute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sen- 
timents and actions by which we advance those ends, 
and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man which 
in reality is the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial 
view, this cause seems sufficient to produce the effects 
which are ascribed to it, and the system of human na- 
ture seems to be more simple and agreeable when all 
its different operations are in this manner deduced from 
a single principle." 

TV. Reasons which have induced some Writers to re 
solve all Virtue into Benevolence.] To the strictures 
already offered on Hutcheson's writings I have only to 
add, that he seems to consider virtue as a quality of 
our affections, whereas it is really a quality of our ac- 
tions ; or (perhaps in strict propriety) of those disposi- 
tions from which our actions immediately proceed. 
Our benevolent affections are always amiable, but, in 
so far as they are constitutional, they are certainly in 
no respect meritorious. Indeed, some of them are com- 
mon to us with the brutes. When they are possessed 
in an eminent degree, we may perhaps consider them 
as a ground of moral esteem, because they indicate the 
pains which has been bestowed on their cultivation, and 
a course of active virtue in which they have been ex- 
ercised and strengthened. On the contrary, a person 
who wants them is always an object of horror ; chiefly 
because we know they are only to be eradicated by 
long habits of profligacy, and partly in consequence of 
the uneasiness we feel when we see the ordinary course 
of nature violated, as in a monstrous animal produc- 
tion. It is from these two facts that the plausibility of 
30 



350 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Dr. Hutcheson's language on this subject in a great 
measure arises; but if the facts be accurately examined, 
theywill be found perfectly consistent with the doctrine 
already laid down, that nothing is an object of moral 
praise or blame, but what depends on our own volun- 
tary exertions ; and of consequence, that these terms 
are not applicable to our benevolent or malevolent af- 
fections, so far as we suppose them to result necessarily 
from our constitutional frame. 

In order to think with accuracy on this very impor- 
tant point of morals, it is also necessary to distinguish 
those benevolent affections which urge us to their re- 
spective objects by a blind impulse, from that rational 
and enlightened benevolence which interests us in the 
happiness of all mankind, and indeed of all the orders 
of sensitive being. This divine principle of action 
appears but little in the bulk of our species; for, al- 
though the seeds of it are sown in every breast, it 
requires long and careful cultivation to rear them to 
maturity, choked as they are by envy, by jealousy, by 
selfishness, and by those contracted views which origi- 
nate in unenlightened schemes of human policy. Clear 
away these noxious weeds, and the genuine benevo- 
lence of the human heart will appear in all its beauty. 
No wonder, then, that we should regard with such 
peculiar sentiments of veneration the character of one 
whom we consider as the sincere and unwearied friend 
of humanity ; for such a character implies the existence 
of all the other virtues; more particularly, candid and 
just dispositions towards our fellow-creatures, and a 
long course of persevering exertion in combating preju- 
dice; and in eradicating narrow and malignant pas- 
sions. The gratitude, besides, which all men must feel 
towards one in whose benevolent wishes they know 
themselves to be comprehended, contributes to enliven 
the former sentiment of moral esteem ; and both to- 
gether throw so peculiar a lustre on this branch of 
duty, as goes far tq_ account for the origin of those sys- 
tems which represent it as the only direct object of 
moral approbation. 



BENEVOLENCE.' 3fl 

It may be worth while to add, before leaving the 
subject, that, when a rational and habitual benevolence 
forms part of a character, it will render the conduct per* 
fectly uniform, and will exclude the possibility of those 
inconsistencies that are frequently observable in indi- 
viduals who give themselves up to the guidance of par- 
ticular affections, either private or public. How often, 
for example, do we meet with individuals, who have 
great pretensions to public spirit, and even to humani- 
ty, on important occasions, who affect an habitual rude- 
ness in the common intercourse of society ! The pub- 
lic spirit of such men cannot possibly arise from genu- 
ine benevolence, otherwise the same principle of action 
would extend to every different part of the conduct by 
which the comfort of other men is affected ; and in the 
case of most individuals, the addition they are able to 
make to human happiness, by the constant exercise of 
courtesy and gentleness to all who are within the sphere 
of their influence, is of far greater amount than all that 
can result from the more splendid and heroic exertions 
of their beneficence. A similar remark may be applied 
to such as are possessed of strong private attachments 
and of humanity to objects in distress, while they have 
no idea of public spirit; and also to those who lay 
claim to a more than common portion of patriotic zeal, 
while they avow a contempt for the general interests of 
humanity. In truth, all those offices, whether appar- 
ently trifling or important, which contribute to aug- 
ment the happiness of our fellow-creatures, — civility, 
gentleness, kindness, humanity, patriotism, universal 
benevolence, — are only diversified expressions of the 
same disposition, according to the circumstances in 
which it operates, and the relation which the agent 
bears to others. 



352 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Section II. 

OF JUSTICE. 

I. Definition and Origin of the Sense of Justice.] 
The word justice, in its most extensive signification, 
denotes that disposition which leads us, in cases where 
oar own temper, or passions, or interests are concerned, 
to determine and to act without being biased by partial 
considerations. 

I had occasion formerly to observe, that a desire of 
our own happiness is inseparable from our nature as 
sensitive and rational beings; or, in other words, that 
it is impossible to conceive of a being capable of form- 
ing the ideas of happiness and misery, to whom the 
one shall not be an object of desire and the other of 
aversion. On the other hand, it is no less evident that 
this desire is a principle belonging to such beings ex- 
clusive!// ; inasmuch as the very idea of happiness, or of 
ivhat is good for man on the whole, presupposes the ex- 
ercise of reason in the mind which is able to perform 
it, and as it is only a being possessed of the power of 
self-government which can pursue steadily this abstract 
conception, in opposition to the solicitations of present 
appetite and passion. This rational self-love (or, in 
other words, this regard to what is good for us on the 
whole) is analogous, in some important respects, to 
that calm benevolence which has been already illus- 
trated. They are both characteristical endowments of 
a rational nature, and they both exert an influence 
over the conduct, in proportion as reason gains an as- 
cendant over prejudice and error, and over those appe- 
tites which are common to us and to the brutes. 

The inferior principles of action in our nature have 
all a manifest reference to one or other of these rational 
principles ; for, although they operate without any re- 
flection on our part, they all lead to ends beneficial to 
the individual or to society. Of this kind are hunger, 
thirst, the desire of knowledge, the desire of esteem ; 



justice, 353 

pity to the distressed, natural affection, and a variety 
of others. Upon the whole, these two great principles 
of action, self-love and benevolence, coincide wonder- 
fully in recommending one and the same course of con- 
duct ; and we have great reason to believe, that, if we 
were acquainted with all the remote consequences of 
our actions, they would be found to coincide entirely. 
There are, however, cases in which there seems to be 
an interference between them; and, in such cases, the 
generality of mankind are apt to be influenced more 
than they ought to be by self-love, and the principles 
which are subsidiary to it. These sometimes lead them 
to act in direct opposition to their sense of duty ; but 
much more frequently they influence the conduct by 
suggesting to the judgment partial and erroneous views 
of circumstances, and by persuading, men that the line 
of their duty coincides with that which is prescribed 
by interest and inclination. Of all this every man 
capable of reflection must soon be convinced from ex- 
perience, and he will study to correct his judgment in 
cases in which he himself is a party, either by recollect- 
ing the judgments he has formerly passed in similar 
circumstances on the conduct of others, or by stating 
cases to himself, in which his own interest and pre- 
dilections are perfectly left out of the question. Now 
I use the word justice to express that disposition of 
mind which leads a man, where his own interest or 
passions are concerned, to determine and to act accord- 
ing to those judgments which he would have formed 
of the conduct of another placed in a similar situation. 
But although I believe that expedients of this sort are 
necessary to the best of men for correcting their moral 
judgments in cases in which they themselves are par- 
ties, it will not therefore follow, (as I have before ob- 
served,*) that our ideas of right and wrong with respect 
to our own conduct are originally derived from our 
sentiments with respect to the conduct of others. If I 
had had recourse to no such expedient for correcting 

* See p. 243. 

30* 



354 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

my first judgment, I should still have formed some 
judgment or other of a particular conduct, as right, 
wrong, or indifferent, and the only difference would 
have been, that I should probably have decided improp- 
erly, from a false or a partial view of the case. 

It is observed by Mr. Smith, as an argument against 
the existence of a moral sense or moral faculty, that 
these words are of very recent origin, and that it must 
appear very strange that a principle, which Providence 
undoubtedly intended to be the governing one of hu- 
man nature, should hitherto have been so little taken 
notice of, as not to have got a name in any language. 
If this observation is levelled merely at these two 
expressions, I do not take upon me to defend their 
propriety. I use them because they are commonly 
employed by ethical writers of late, and because I do 
not think them liable to misinterpretation after the 
explanation of them I formerly gave. I certainly do 
not consider them as expressing an implanted relish for 
certain qualities of action analogous to our relish for 
certain tastes and smells. All I contend for is, that the 
words right and wrong, ought and ought not, express 
simple ideas ; that our perception of these qualities in 
certain actions is an ultimate fact of our nature ; and 
that this perception always implies the idea of moral 
obligation. When I speak of a moral sense or a moral 
faculty, I mean merely to express the power we have of 
forming these ideas; but I do not suppose that this 
bears any more analogy to our external senses than the 
power we have of forming the simple ideas of number, 
of time, or of causation, all which arise in the mind ; we 
cannot tell how, when certain objects or certain events 
are perceived by the understanding. If those ideas 
were as important as those of right and wrong, or had 
been as much under the review of philosophers, we 
might perhaps have had a sense of time, a sense oj 
number, and a sense of causation. And, in fact, some- 
thing very like this language occurs in the writings of 
Lord Karnes. 

But if Mr. Smith meant to be understood as imply- 



JUSTICE. 355 

Iiig that the words right and wrong, ouglit and ought 
not,, do not express simple ideas, I must take the liberty 
of remarking, in opposition to it, that, although the 
words moral sense and moral faculty, considered as 
indicating their source, are of late origin, this is by no 
means the case with the word conscience. It is indeed 
said, that conscience " does not immediately denote 
any moral faculty, by which we approve or disapprove, 
— that it supposes, indeed, the existence of some such 
faculty, but that it properly signifies our consciousness 
of having acted agreeably or contrary to its directions."* 
But the truth I take to be this, that the word conscience 
coincides exactly with the moral faculty, with this 
difference only, that the former refers to our own con- 
duct alone, whereas the latter is meant to express also 
the power by which we approve or disapprove of the 
conduct of others. Now if this be granted, and if it be 
allowed that the former word is to be found in all 
languages, and that the latter is only a modern inven 
tion, is it not a natural inference, that our judgments, 
with respect to our own conduct, are not merely ap- 
plications to ourselves of those we have previously 
formed with respect to the conduct of our fellow-crea 
tures ? 

II. The Duty of Candor ; or Justice in our Apprecia- 
tion of other Men.] It would be endless to attempt to 
point out all the various forms in which the disposition 
formerly defined will display itself in life. I must con- 
tent myself with mentioning one or two of its more 
remarkable effects, merely as examples of the influence 
it is likely to have on the conduct. One of the more 
important of these is that temper of mind we express 
by the word candor, which prevents our judgments 
with respect to other men from being improperly biased 
by our passions and prejudices. This, although at 
bottom the disposition is the same, may be considered 
in three lights : — 1st. As it is displayed in appreciating 

* Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. III. Chap. III. 



656 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

the talents of others. 2d. In judging of their intentions. 
3d. In controversy. 

1. There is no principle more deeply implanted in 
the mind than the love of fame and of distinction, and 
there is none which, when properly regulated, is sub- 
servient to more valuable purposes. It is, at the same 
time, a principle which it is perhaps as difficult to 
restrain within the bounds of moderation as any other. 
In some ungoverned minds, it seems to get the better 
of every other principle of action, and must be a source 
to the possessor of perpetual mortification and disgust, 
by leading him to aspire at eminence in every different 
line, of ambition, and to repine if in any one of them he 
is surpassed by others. In the midst of the astonishing 
projects which employed the sublime genius of Riche- 
lieu, his peace of mind was completely ruined by the 
success of the Cid of Corneille. The first appearance 
of this tragedy (according to Fontenelle) alarmed the 
Cardinal as much as if he had seen the Spaniards at 
the gates of Paris ; and the most acceptable flattery 
which his minions could offer was to advise him to 
eclipse the fame of Corneille by a tragedy of his own. 
Nor did he aim merely at adding the fame of a poet to 
that of a statesman. Mortified to think that any one 
path of ambition was shut against him, he is said, 
when on his death-bed, to have held some conversation? 
with his confessor about the possibility of his being 
canonized as a saint. 

In order to restrain this violent and insatiable desire 
within certain bounds, there are many checks appointed 
in our constitution. In the first place, it can be com- 
pletely gratified only by the actual possession of those 
qualities for which we wish to be esteemed, and ol 
those advantages which are the proper grounds of dis- 
tinction. A good man is never more mortified than 
when he is praised for qualities he does not possess, 01 
for advantages in which he is conscious he has no 
merit. Secondly, although the gratification of this 
principle consists in a certain superiority over other 
men, we feel that we are not entitled to take undue 



justice. 357 

advantages of them. We may exert ourselves to the 
utmost in the race of glory, but we are not entitled to 
obstruct the progress of others, or to detract from their 
reputation in order to advance our own. All this will 
be readily granted in general ; and yet in practice there 
is surely nothing more difficult than to draw the line 
between emulation and envy, or to check that self- 
partiality which, while it leads us to dwell on our own 
advantages, and to magnify them in our own estima- 
tion, prevents us either from attending sufficiently to 
the merits of others, or from viewing them in the most 
favorable light. Of this difficulty a wise and good 
man will soon be satisfied from his own experience, 
and he will endeavour to guard against it as far as he is 
able, by judging of the merits of a rival, or even of an 
enemy, as he would have done if there had been no 
interference between them. He will endeavour, in short, 
to do justice to their merits, not merely in words, but 
in sincerity, and bring himself, if possible, to love and 
to honor that genius and ability which have eclipsed 
his own. Nor will he retire in disgust from the race 
because he has been outstripped by others, but will 
redouble all his exertions in the service of mankind; 
recollecting, that, if Nature has been more partial to 
others in her intellectual gifts than to him, she has left 
open to all the theatre of virtue, where the merits of 
individuals are determined, not by their actual attain- 
ments, but by the use and improvement they make of 
those advantages which their situation has afforded 
them. 

2. Candor in judging of the intentions of others. I 
have before mentioned several considerations which 
render it highly probable that there is much less vice or 
criminal intention in the world than is commonly im- 
agined, and that the greater part of the disputes among 
mankind arise from mutual mistake and misapprehen- 
sion. Every man must recollect many instances in 
which his own motives have been grossly misapprehend- 
ed by the world ; and it is but reasonable for him to 
conclude, that the case may have been the same with 



358 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

other men. It is but an instance, then, of that justice 
we owe to others, to make the most candid allowances 
for their apparent deviations, and to give every action 
the most favorable construction it can possibly admit 
of. Such a temper, while it renders a man respect- 
able and amiable in society, contributes perhaps more 
than any other circumstance to his private happiness. 
" When you would cheer your heart," says Marcus 
Antoninus, " consider the excellences and abilities of 
your several acquaintance ; the activity of one, the high 
sense of honor and modesty of another, the liberality of 
a third, and in other persons some other virtue. There 
is nothing so delightful as virtue appearing in the con- 
duct of your contemporaries as frequently as possible. 
Such thoughts we should still retain with us." * 

3. Perhaps there is no temper which so completely 
disqualifies us for the search of truth, as that which we 
experience when provoked by controversy or dispute. 
Some men undoubtedly are more misled by it than 
others ; but I apprehend there is no one, however 
modest and unassuming, who will not own that, upon 
such occasions, he has almost always felt his judgment 
warped, and a desire of victory mingle itself, in spite 
of all his efforts, with his love of truth. Hence the 
aversion which all such men feel for controversy, — 
convinced from experience how likely it would be to 
betray themselves into error, and unwilling to afford an 
opportunity for displaying the envious and malignant 
passions of others. This amiable disposition has been 
often mentioned by the friends of Sir Isaac Newton as 
one of the most marked features in his character ; and 
we are even told that it led him to suppress, for a 
course of years, some of his most important discoveries, 
which he knew from their nature were likely to provoke 
opposition. " He was indeed," says one of his biogra- 
phers, " of so meek and gentle a disposition, and so 
great a lover of peace, that he would have rather chosen 
to remain in obscurity than to have the calm of life 

* Book VI. c. 48. 



justice. 359 

ruffled by those storms and disputes which genius and 
learning always draw upon those who are most emi- 
nent for them. From his love of peace arose, no doubt, 
that unusual kind of horror which he felt for all dis- 
putes. Steady, unbroken attention, free from those 
frequent recoilings incident to others, was his peculiar 
felicity. He knew it, and he knew the value of it. 
When some objections, hastily made to his discoveries 
concerning light and colors, induced him to lay aside 
the design he had taken of publishing his Optical 
Lectures, we find him reflecting on that dispute, into 
which he had unavoidably been drawn, in these terms : 
— ' I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so 
real a blessing as my quiet, to run after a shadow.' In 
the same temper, after he had sent the manuscript to 
the Royal Society, with his consent to the printing of 
it, upon Hooke's injuriously insisting that he had himself 
solved Kepler's problem before our author, he deter- 
mined, rather than be involved again in a controversy, 
to suppress the third book ; and he was very hardly 
prevailed on to alter that resolution." * 

I shall only add further on this head, that a love of 
controversy indicates, not only an overweening vanity 
and a disregard for truth, but in general, perhaps al- 
ways, it indicates a mediocrity of genius; for it arises 
from those feelings of envy and jealousy which provoke 
little minds to depreciate the merit of useful discoveries. 
He who is conscious of his own inventive powers, and 
whose great object is to add to the stock of human 
knowledge, will reject unwillingly any plausible doc- 
trine till after the most severe examination, and will 
separate, with patience and temper, the traths it con- 
tains from the errors that are blended with them. No 
opinion can be more groundless than that a captious 
and disputatious temper is a mark of acuteness. On 
the contrary, a sound and manly understanding is in no 
instance more strongly displayed than in a quick per- 
ception of important truth, when imperfectly stated and 

* Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, Art. Newton (Sir Isaac). 



360 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-iVJEN. 

blended with error; — a perception which may not be 
sufficient to satisfy the judgment completely at the 
time, or at least to obviate the difficulties of others, but 
which is sufficient to prevent it from a hasty rejection 
of the whole, from the obvious defects of some of the 
parts. Hence the important hints which an author of 
genius collects among the rubbish of his predecessors ; 
and which, so far from detracting from his own origi- 
nality, place it in the strongest possible light, by show- 
ing that an idea which was already current in the 
world, and which had hitherto remained barren and 
useless, may, in the mind of a philosopher, become the 
germ of an extensive system. 

I cannot help taking this opportunity of remarking 
(although the observation is not much connected with 
the subject in which we are engaged), that something 
similar to this may be applied to our critical judgments 
in the fine arts. It is easy to perceive blemishes, but 
it is the province of genius alone to have a quick per- 
ception of beauties, and to be eager to applaud them. 
And it is owing to this, that, of all critics, a dunce is 
the severest, and a man of genuine taste the most in- 
dulgent. 

III. The Duty of Honesty ; or Justice in respect to 
the Interests and Rights of other Men.] The foregoing 
illustrations are stated at some length, in order to cor- 
rect those partial definitions of justice which restrict its 
province to a rigorous observance of the rules of integ- 
rity or honesty in our dealings with our fellow-creatures. 
So far as this last disposition proceeds from a sense of 
duty, uninfluenced by human laws, it coincides exact- 
ly with that branch of virtue which has been now de- 
scribed under the title of candor. 

In the instances hitherto mentioned, the disposition 
of justice has been supposed to operate in restraining 
the partialities of the temper and passions. There are, 
however, no instances in which its influence is more 
necessary than where our interest is concerned ; or, to 
express myself more explicitly, where there is an appar- 



JUSTICE. 361 

ent interference between our rights and those of other 
men. In such cases, a disposition to observe the rules 
of justice is called integrity ox honesty, — which is so 
important a branch of justice that it has, in a great 
measure, appropriated the name to itself. The obser- 
vations made by Mr. Hume and Mr. Smith, on the dif- 
ferences between justice and the other virtues, apply 
only to this last branch of it ; and it is this branch 
which properly forms the subject of that part of ethics 
which is called natural jurisprudence* In what remains 
of this chapter, when the word justice occurs, it is to 
be understood in the limited sense now mentioned. 

The circumstances which distinguish this kind of 
justice from the other virtues are chiefly two. In the 
first place, its rules may be laid down with a degree of 
accuracy of which moral precepts do not in any other 
instance admit. Secondly, its rules may be enforced, 
inasmuch as every breach of them violates the rights of 
some other person, and entitles him to employ force for 
his defence or security. 

Another distinction between justice and the other vir- 
tues is much insisted on by Mr. Hume. It is, accord- 
ing to him, an artificial and not a natural virtue, and 
derives all its obligations from the political union, and 
from considerations of utility. The principal argument 
alleged in support of this proposition is, that there is 
no implanted principle, prompting us by a blind im- 
pulse to the exercise of justice, similar to those affec- 
tions which conspire with and strengthen our benevo- 
lent dispositions. But, granting the fact upon which 
this argument proceeds, nothing can be inferred from it 
that makes an essential distinction between the obliga- 
tions of justice and of beneficence; for, so far as we 
act merely from the blind impulse of an affection, o'jur 
conduct cannot be considered as virtuous. Our affec- 
tions were given us to arrest our attention to particular 
objects, whose happiness is connected with our exer- 
tions, and to excite and support the activity of the 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. VI. 



362 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

mind, when a sense of duty might be insufficient for 
the purpose ; but the propriety or impropriety of our 
conduct depends, in no instance, on the strength or 
weakness of the affection, but on our obeying or dis- 
obeying the dictates of reason and of conscience. These 
inform us, in language which it is impossible to mis- 
take, that it is sometimes a duty to check the most 
amiable and pleasing emotions of the heart ; — to with- 
draw, for example, from the sight of those distresses 
which stronger claims forbid us to relieve, and to deny 
ourselves that exquisite luxury which arises from the 
exercise of humanity. So far, therefore, as benevolence 
is a virtue, it is precisely on the same footing with jus- 
tice ; that is, we approve of it, not because it is agree- 
able to us, but because we feel it to be a duty. 

It may be further remarked, that there are very strong 
implanted principles which serve as checks on injustice ; 
the principles, to wit, of resentment and of indignation, 
which are surely as much a part of the human consti- 
tution as pity or parental affection. These principles 
imply a sense of injustice, and consequently of justice. 

In the case of justice, also, there is always a right on 
one hand corresponding to an obligation on the other. 
If I am under an obligation, for example, to abstain 
from violating the property of my neighbour, he has a 
right to defend by force his property when invaded. It 
therefore appears that the rules of justice may be laid 
down in two different forms, either as a system of duties 
or as a system of rights. The former view of the sub- 
ject belongs properly to the moralist, the latter to the 
lawyer. It is in this last form, accordingly, that the 
principles of justice have been stated by the writers on 
natural jurisprudence. 

So far, there is nothing to be reprehended in the plan 
they have followed. On the contrary, a considerable 
advantage was gained in point of method by adopting 
that very comprehensive and accurate division of our 
rights which the civilians had introduced. As the 
whole object of law is to protect men in all that they 
may lawfully do, or possess, or demand, civilians have 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 

defined the word jus, or right, to be facultas aliquid 
agendi, vel possidendi, vel ab alio consequendi, — a law- 
ful claim to do any thing, to possess any thing, or to 
demand something from some other person. The first 
of these may be called the right of liberty, or the right 
of employing the powers we have received from na- 
ture in every case in which we do not injure the rights 
of others ; the second, the right of property ; the third, 
the rights arising from contract. The last two were 
further distinguished from each other by calling the 
former (to wit, the right of property) a real right, and 
the latter (to wit, the rights arising from contract) per- 
sonal rights, because they respect some particular per- 
son or persons from whom the fulfilment of the con- 
tract may be required. 

This division of our rights appears to be comprehen- 
sive and philosophical, and it affords a convenient ar- 
rangement for exhibiting an indirect view of the differ- 
ent duties which justice prescribes. " What I have a 
right to do it is the duty of my fellow-creatures to al- 
low me to do, without molestation. What is my prop- 
erty no man ought to take from me, or to disturb me 
in the enjoyment of it. And what I have a right to 
demand of any man it is his duty to perform." * Such 
a system, therefore, with respect to our rights, exhibits 
(though in a manner somewhat indirect and artificial) 
a system of the rules of justice. 

Section III. 

OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 

I. The Right of Property. ~\ The following observa- 
tions on the right of property are introduced here chief- 
ly with a view to show that men possess rights antece- 
dent to the establishment of the political union. 

It cannot, I apprehend, be doubted, that, according 
to the notions to which we, in the present state of so* 

* Rcid, On the Active Powers, Essay V. Chap. III. 



364 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

ciety, are habituated from our infancy, the three follow- 
ing things are included in the idea of property. 

1. A right of exclusive enjoyment. 

2. A right of inquiry after our property, when taker 
away without our consent, and of reclaiming it wher- 
ever found. 

3. A right of transference. 

We do not consider our property in any object to be 
complete, unless we can exercise all these three rights 
with respect to it. 

Lord Karnes endeavours to show that these ideas are 
not agreeable to the apprehensions of the human mind 
in the ruder periods of society, but imply a refinement 
and abstraction of thought which. are the result of im- 
provement in law and government. The relation (in 
particular) of property, independent of possession, he 
thinks of too metaphysical a nature for the mind of a 
savage. " It appears to me," says he, " to be highly 
probable, that among savages, involved in objects of 
sense, and strangers to abstract speculation, property, 
and the rights or moral powers arising from it, never 
are with accuracy distinguished from the natural pow- 
ers that must be exerted upon the subject to make it 
profitable to the possessor. The man who kills and 
eats, who sows and reaps, at his own pleasure, inde- 
pendent of another's will, is naturally deemed proprie- 
tor. The grossest savages understand power without 
right, of which they are made sensible by daily acts of 
violence ; but property without possession is a concept 
tion too abstract for a savage, or for any person who 
has not studied the principles of law." * 

With this remark I cannot agree; because I think 
the right of property is founded on a natural sentiment, 
which must be felt in full force in the lowest state of 
society. The sentiment I allude to is that of a moral 
connection between labor and a right of exclusive en- 
joyment to the fruits of it. This connection it will be 
proper to illustrate more particularly. 

* Historical Law Tracts, Tract III. 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 365 

Let us suppose, then, a country so fertile as to pro- 
duce all the necessaries and accommodations of life 
without any exertions of human industry ; it is mani- 
fest, that, in such a state of things, no man would think 
of appropriating to himself any of these necessaries or 
accommodations, any more than we in this part of the 
globe think of appropriating air or water. As this, 
however, is not, in any part of the earth, the condition 
of man, doomed as he is, by the circumstances of his 
birth, to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, it 
would be reasonable to expect, a priori, that Nature 
would make some provision for securing to individuals 
the fruits of their industry. In fact, she has made such 
a provision in the natural sentiments of mankind, 
which lead them to consider industry as entitled to 
reward, and, in particular, the laborer as entitled to 
the fruit of his own labor. These, I think, may be 
fairly stated as moral axioms, to which the mind yields 
its assent as immediately and necessarily as it does to 
any axiom in mathematics or metaphysics. 

How cruel is the mortification we feel when we see 
an industrious man reduced by some unforeseen misfor- 
tune to beggary in old age ! We can scarcely help com- 
plaining of the precarious condition of humanity, and 
that man should be thus doomed to be the sport of ac- 
cident ; and we feel ourselves called on, as far as we are 
able, to repair, by our own liberality, this unjust distri- 
bution of the goods of fortune. On the other hand, it 
is difficult to avoid some degree of dissatisfaction when 
we see the natural and deserved reward of industry ac- 
quired all at once by a prize in the lottery or by gam- 
ing, although in this instance the uneasiness (as might 
be expected from the natural benevolence to the human 
mind) is trifling in comparison to what it is in the oth- 
er case. Our dissatisfaction in particular instances is 
much greater when we see the laborer deprived by ac- 
cident of the immediate fruit of his own labor ; — when, 
for example, he has nearly completed a complicated 
machine, and some delicate part of it gives way, and 
renders all his toil useless. 
31* 



366 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

If another person interferes with the fruit of his in- 
dustry, our dissatisfaction and indignation are still more 
increased. We feel here a variety of sentiments. 1. A 
dissatisfaction that the laborer does not enjoy that 
reward to which his industry entitled him. 2. A dis- 
satisfaction that another person, who did not labor, 
should acquire the possession of an object of value. 
And 3. An indignation against the man who deprived 
the laborer of his just reward. 

This sentiment, that " the laborer deserves the fruit 
of his own labor," is the chief, or rather (abstracting 
positive institution) the only, foundation of the sense 
of property. An attempt to deprive him of it is a 
species of injustice which rouses the indignation of 
every impartial spectator; and so deeply are these prin- 
ciples implanted in our nature, that we cannot help 
feeling some degree of remorse when we deprive even 
a hive of bees of that provision which they had in- 
dustriously collected for their own use. 

The writers, indeed, on natural law ascribe in gen- 
eral the origin of property to priority of occupancy, and 
have puzzled themselves in attempting to explain how 
this act should appropriate to an individual what was 
formerly in common. Grotius and Puffendorf insist 
that this right of occupancy is founded upon a tacit 
but understood assent of all mankind, that the first 
occupant should become the owner. And Barbeyrac, 
Locke, and others, that the very act of occupancy 
alone, being a degree of bodily labor, is, from a prin- 
ciple of natural justice, without any compact, a suf- 
ficient foundation of property. Blackstone, although 
he thinks that the dispute about the manner in which 
occupancy conveys a right of property savors too 
much of scholastic refinement, expresses no doubt 
about its having this effect independent of positive 
institutions.* 

Some later philosophers have founded the right of 
property on the general sympathy of mankind with 

* See his Commentaries, Book II. Chap. I, 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 367 

the reasonable expectation which the occupant has 
foaied of enjoying unmolested the object he has got 
possession of, or of which he was the first discoverer ; 
and on the indignation felt by the impartial spectator 
when he sees this reasonable expectation disappointed. 
This theory (which I have been assured from the best 
authority was adopted by Mr. Smith in his lectures on 
jurisprudence) seems to have been suggested by a pas- 
sage in Dr. Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, in which he 
says, that " it is immoral, when we can support our- 
selves otherwise, to defeat any innocent design of an- 
other ; and that on this immorality is founded the re- 
gard we owe to the claims of the first occupant." In 
this theory, too, it is taken for granted that priority of 
occupancy founds a right of property, and that such a 
right may even be acquired by having accidentally seen 
a valuable object before it was observed by any other 
person. 

In order to think with accuracy on this subject, it is 
necessary to distinguish carefully the complete right of 
property which is founded on labor, from the transient 
right of possession which is acquired by mere priority 
of occupancy. Thus, before the appropriation of land, 
if any individual had occupied a particular spot for 
repose or shade, it would have been unjust to deprive 
him of the possession of it. This, however, was only 
a transient right. The spot of ground would again 
become common the moment the occupier had left it ; 
that is, the right of possession would remain no longer 
than the act of possession. Cicero illustrates this hap- 
pily by the similitude of a theatre. " Quemadmodum 
theatmm, cum commune sit, recte tamen dici potest 
ejus esse eum locum quern quisque occuparit." * 

The general conclusions which I deduce from the 
foregoing observations are these : — 

1. That, in every state of society, labor, wherever it 
is exerted, is understood to found a right of property. 



* De Finibus, Lib. III. 20. " As in a theatre the seats are all for common 
use, yet every man's place is his own when he 1ms taken it." 



368 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

2. That, according to natural law, (in the sense at 
least in which that phrase is commonly employed by 
writers on jurisprudence,) labor is the only original way 
of acquiring property. 

3. That, according to natural law, mere occupancy 
founds only a right of possession ; and that, wherever 
it founds a complete right of property, it owes its force 
to positive institutions. 

II. Origin and History of Property.] An attention 
to these conclusions, in particular to the distinction be- 
tween the transient right of possession founded on oc- 
cupancy, and the permanent right of property founded 
on labor, will, if I mistake not, clear up some of the 
difficulties which involve the first steps in the history 
of property, according to the view of the subject given 
by Lord Kames ; and it was with this view I was led 
to premise these general principles to the slight histori- 
cal sketch I am now to offer. 

With respect to that system which refers the origin 
of property to the political union and to considerations 
of utility, it seems sufficient to observe, that, so far is 
government from creating this right, its necessary effect 
is to subject it to certain limitations. Abstraction made 
of political confederation, every man's property is sole- 
ly at his own disposal. He is supreme judge in Ml 
own cause, and may defend what he conceives to be 
his right as far as his power reaches. In the state ol 
civil society his property is regulated by positive laws, 
and he must acquiesce in the judgment of his superiors 
with respect to his rights, even in those cases where he 
feels it to be unjust. 

From the passage already quoted from Kames, it 
appears that he conceived the idea of property without 
possession to be of too abstract and metaphysical a 
nature to be apprehended by a savage ; and he has 
collected a variety of facts to prove, that, according to 
the common notions of mankind, in the infancy of 
jurisprudence, the right of property is understood to 
cease the moment that possession is at an end. But 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 



869 



on a more attentive examination of the subject, I ap- 
prehend it will be found that the ideas of savages, with 
respect to property, are the same with ours ; that mere 
occupancy without labor founds only a right of pos- 
session ; and that labor, wherever it is employed, founds 
an exclusive and permanent right to the fruits of it. 
Lord Karnes's theory has obviously been suggested by 
the common doctrine with respect to the right of prop- 
erty being founded in priority of occupancy, compared 
with the acknowledged fact, that among rude nations 
occupancy does not establish a permanent right. The 
other arguments which he has alleged in support of 
his opinion will be found to be equally inconclusive. 

Before I proceed to the consideration of these, it 
may be proper to observe, that we must not always 
form an idea of the sentiments of men from the defects 
of their laws. The existence, indeed, of a law is a 
proof of the sentiments which men felt when the law 
was made ; but the defects of a law are not always 
proofs that men did not feel that there were disorders 
in the state of society which required correction. The 
laws of a country may not make provision for repara- 
tion to the original proprietor in the case of theft ; but 
it will not follow from this that men do not apprehend 
the original proprietor to have any right when his 
property has been stolen from him. The application 
of this general remark to some of the arguments I am 
now to consider will, I hope, be so obvious, as to render 
it unnecessary for me to point it out particularly. 

Among these arguments, one of the most plausible is 
founded on a general principle, which appears, from a 
variety of facts quoted by Karnes, to run through most 
rude systems of jurisprudence, that, in the case of stolen 
goods, the claim of the bond fide purchaser is preferable 
to that of the original proprietor. This he accounts for 
from the imperfect notions they have of the metaphysi- 
cal nature of property when separated from possession. 
But if this were the case, the same laws should support 
the claim of the thief against the original proprietor: 
or rather, indeed, neither the original proprietor, nor 



370 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

any one else, could conceive that he had any connection 
with the object stolen the moment after it was out of 
his possession. The fact is, that this respect paid to the 
bond fide purchaser is a proof, not of any misapprehen* 
sion with respect to the idea of property, but of a weak 
government and an imperfect police. Where thefts are 
easily committed, and where no public fairs or markets 
are established, it would put a complete end to all 
transferences of property, if the bona fide purchaser 
were left exposed to the claims of former proprietors. 
Such a practice would be attended with still greater 
inconveniences than arise from the casual violations 
of property by theft ; not to mention that the regard 
shown to the bona fide purchaser must have a tendency 
to repress theft, by redoubling the attention of indi- 
viduals to preserve the actual possession of their prop- 
erty. That these or some other views of utility were 
the real foundation of the laws quoted by Karnes is 
confirmed by an old regulation in our own country, 
prohibiting buying and selling, except in open market, 
— a regulation which had obviously been suggested by 
the experience of the inconveniences arising from the 
latent claims of former proprietors against bona fide 
purchasers. 

Another argument mentioned by Karnes in support 
of his theory is founded on the shortness of the term 
which completes prescription among rude nations ; a 
single year, for example, in the case of movables, by 
the oldest law of the Romans. This law, he says, 
testifies that property, independent of possession, was 
considered to be a right of the slenderest kind. It is 
evident, that, upon his own principles, it should not in 
that state of society have been considered as a right at 
all. If it was conceived to subsist a single day after 
the possession was at an end, the metaphysical diffi- 
culty which he magnifies so much was obviously sur- 
mounted. In every society, it will be found expedient 
to fix some term for prescription, and the particular 
length of it must be determined by the circumstances 
of the society at the time. In general, as law im« 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 371 

proves, and government becomes more effectual, a 
greater attention to the stability of property, and con- 
sequently a longer term for prescription, may be ex- 
pected. 

The community of goods, which is said to take place 
among some rude nations, will be found, on examina- 
tion, to be perfectly consistent with the account I have 
given of their ideas on the subject of property. Where 
the game is taken by a common effort, the natural 
sense of justice dictates that it should be enjoyed in 
common. And indeed, abstracting all considerations 
of justice, the experience of the precarious fortune of 
the chase would soon suggest to the common sense 
of mankind the expediency of such an arrangement. 
This, however, does not indicate any imperfection in 
their idea of property ; for even in this state of society 
there are always some articles which are understood to 
be the exclusive property of the individual, such as his 
bow and arrows, and the instruments he employs in 
fishing. 

I am confirmed in these conclusions by the account 
given by Dr. Robertson of the American Indians ; and 
the more so, as the facts he mentions, and even his 
reasonings, stand in opposition to his own preconceived 
opinion. " Nations" he says expressly, " which depend 
upon hunting are strangers to the idea of property " ; 
and yet, when he comes to explain himself, it appears 
that, even in the present age of metaphysical refine- 
ment, if our physical circumstances were the same, we 
should feel and judge exactly as they do. " As the 
animals," he continues, in the passage immediately 
following the last sentence I have quoted, " on which 
the hunter feeds are not bred under his inspection, nor 
nourished by his care, he can claim no right to them 
while they run wild in the forest. Where game is so 
plentiful that it can be caught with little trouble, men 
never dream of appropriating what is of small value, 
or of easy acquisition. Where it is so rare that the labor 
or danger of the chase requires the united efforts of a 
tribe or village, what is killed is a common stock, be 



372 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

longing equally to all who, by their skill or their cour- 
age, have contributed to the success of the excursion. 
The forest or hunting-grounds are deemed the property 
of the tribe, from which it has a title to exclude every 
rival nation. But no individual arrogates a right to 
any district of these in preference to his fellow-citizens. 
They belong equally to all, and thither, as to a genera! 
and undivided store, all repair in quest of sustenance. 
The same principles by which they regulate their chief 
occupation extend to that which is subordinate. Even 
agriculture has not introduced among them a complete 
idea of property. As the men hunt, the women labor 
together, and after they have shared the toils of the 
seed-time, they enjoy the harvest in common." * 

In the notes and illustrations at the end of his Histo- 
ry, Dr. Robertson seems to have been aware that he 
had expressed himself somewhat too strongly on this 
subject, and he has even gone so far as to intimate his 
suspicions that the common facts are not very accu- 
rately stated. " I strongly suspect that a community 
of goods, and. an undivided store, are known only 
among the rudest tribes of hunters, and that, as soon 
as any species of agriculture or regular industry is 
known, the idea of an exclusive right of property to 
the fruits of them is introduced." 

In support of this opinion, Dr. Robertson refers to 
accounts which he had received concerning the state of 
property among the Indians in very different regions of 
America. " The idea of the natives of Brazil," says 
the Chevalier de Pinto, who writes on this subject from 
personal observation, " concerning property is, that, if 
any person cultivate a field, he alone ought to enjoy 
the produce of it, and no other has a title to pretend to 
it. If an individual or a family go a hunting or fish- 
ing, what is caught belongs to the individual or family, 
and they communicate no part of it but to their Ca- 
zique,.and such of their kindred as happen to be in- 
disposed. 

* History of America, Book IV. § 66. 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 373 

" If any person in the village come to their hut, he 
may sit down freely and eat without asking liberty. 
But this is the consequence of their general principle 
of hospitality; for I never observed any partition of 
the increase of their fields, or the produce of the chase, 
which I could consider as the result of any idea con- 
cerning the community of goods. On the contrary, 
they are so much attached to what they deem to be 
their property, that it would be extremely dangerous to 
encroach on it. As far as I have seen or can learn, 
there is not one tribe of Indians in South America 
among whom that community of goods, which has 
been so highly extolled, is known. The circumstance 
in the government of the Jesuits most irksome to the 
Indians of Paraguay was the community of goods 
which those fathers introduced. This was repugnant 
to the original ideas of the Indians. They were ac- 
quainted with the rights of private exclusive property, 
and they submitted with impatience to the regulations 
which destroyed them." 

u Actual possession," says a missionary who resided 
several years among the Indians of the Five Nations, 
"gives a right to the soil; but, whenever a possessor 
sees fit to quit it, another has as good a right to take 
it as he who left it. This law or custom respects not 
only the particular spot on which he erects his house, 
but also his planting ground. If a man has prepared 
a particular spot of ground, on which he proposes in 
future to build or plant, no man has a right to incom- 
mode him, much less to the fruit of his labors, until it 
appears that he voluntarily gives up his views. But I 
never heard of any formal conveyance from one Indian 
to another in their natural state. The limits of every 
canton are circumscribed, that is, they are allowed to 
hunt as far as such a river on this hand, and such a 
mountain on the other. This area is occupied and im- 
proved by individuals and their families. Individuals, 
not the community, have the use and profit of their 
own labors, or success in hunting." 
32 



374 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

III. Property when rightfully created or recognized 
by Positive Laws not less Sacred.] It must not, how- 
ever, be inferred from what has been said, that in a 
civilized society there is any thing in that species of 
property which is acquired by labor to which individu- 
als owe a more sacred regard than they do to every 
other species of property created or recognized by posi- 
tive laws. Among these last there are many which 
have derived their origin from a principle no less ob- 
ligatory than our natural sense of justice, a clear per- 
ception in the mind of the legislator (sanctioned per- 
haps by the concurrent experience of different ages 
and nations) of general utility ; and to all of them, 
while they exist, the reverence of the subject is due, 
on the same principle which binds him to respect and 
to maintain the social order. Nature has provided for 
human happiness, in this instance, in a manner pre- 
cisely analogous to her general economy. Those sim- 
ple and indispensable rules of right and wrong, of just 
and unjust, without which the fruits of the earth could 
not be converted to the use of man, nor his existence 
maintained even in the rudest form of the social union, 
she has engraved on the heart as an essential part of 
the human constitution, — leaving men, as society ad- 
vances, to employ their gradually improving reason in 
fixing, according to their own ideas of expediency, 
the various regulations concerning the acquisition, the 
alienation and transmission of property, which the 
more complicated interests of the community may 
require. 

It is also beautifully ordered, that, while a regard for 
legal property is thus secured, among men capable of 
reflection, by a sense of general utility, the same effect is 
accomplished, in the minds of the multitude, by habit 
and the association of ideas ; in consequence of which, 
all the inequalities of fortune are sanctioned by mere 
prescription, and long possession is conceived to found 
a right of property as complete as that which, by the 
law of nature, an individual has in the fruits of his 
own industry. 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 375 

In such a state of things, therefore, as that with 
which we are connected, the right of property must 
be understood to derive its origin from two distinct 
sources : the one is that natural sentiment of the mind 
which establishes a moral connection between labor 
and an exclusive enjoyment of the fruits of it ; the 
other is the municipal institutions of the country where 
we live. These institutions everywhere take rise partly 
from ideas of natural justice, and partly (perhaps chief- 
ly) from ideas of supposed utility, — two principles 
which, when properly understood, are, I believe, always 
in harmony with each other, and which it ought to be 
the great aim of every legislator to reconcile to the ut- 
most of his power. Among those questions, however, 
which fall under the cognizance of positive laws, there 
are many on which natural justice is entirely silent, 
and which, of consequence, may be discussed on prin- 
ciples of utility solely. Such are most of the questions 
concerning the regulation of the succession to a man's 
property after his death ; of some of which it may per- 
haps be found that the determination ought to vary 
with the circumstances of the society, and which have 
certainly, in fact, been frequently determined by the 
caprice of the legislator, or by some principle ultimate- 
ly resolvable into an accidental association of ideas. 
Indeed, various cases may be supposed, in which it is 
not only useful, but necessary, that a rule should be 
fixed ; while, at the same time, neither justice nor 
utility seems to be much interested in the particular 
decision. 

In examining the questions which turn on consider- 
ations of utility, some will immediately occur, of which 
the determination is so obvious, and which, at the same 
time, are so universal in their application, that the laws 
of all enlightened nations on the subject may be ex- 
pected to be the same. Of this description are many of 
the questions which may be stated with respect to the 
effects of priority of occupancy in establishing perma- 
nent rights. These questions are of course frequently 
confounded with questions of natural law ; and in one 



376 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

sense of that phrase they may not, improperly be com- 
prehended under the title, but the distinction between 
them and the other class of questions is essential; for 
wherever considerations of utility are involved, the po- 
litical union is supposed, whereas the principle of jus- 
tice, properly so called (of that justice, for example, 
which respects the right of the laborer to enjoy the fruit 
of his own industry), is inseparable from the human 
frame.* 



Section IV. 

OF VERACITY. 

I. Importance and Foundation of Veracity.'] The im- 
portant rank which veracity holds among our social du- 
ties appears from the obvious consequences that would 
result if no foundation were laid for it in the constitu- 
tion of our nature. The purposes of speech would be 
frustrated, and every man's opportunities of .knowledge 
would be limited to his own personal experience. 

Considerations of utility, however, do not seem to 
De the only ground of the approbation we bestow on 
this disposition. Abstraction made of all regard to 
consequences, there is something pleasing and amiable 
in sincerity, openness, and truth, — something disagree- 
able and disgusting in duplicity, equivocation, and false- 
hood. Dr. Hutcheson himself, the great patron of that 
theory which resolves all moral qualities into benevo- 
lence, confesses this ; for he speaks of a sense which leads 
us to approve of veracity, distinct from the sense which 
approves of qualities useful to mankind.f As this, how- 
ever, is at best but a vague way of speaking, it may be 
proper to analyze more particularly that part of out 



* On the right of property and its limitations, see Mill's Principles of 
Political Economy, Part II. Chap. I., II. — Ed 

t Philosophies Moralis Institutio Compendiaria, Lib. II. Capp. IX., X. 

Aristotle expresses himself nearly to the same purpose. Ethic. Nico- 
mach., Lib, IV. Cap. VII. Various passages of a similar import occur.in 
Cicero. 



VERACITY. 377 

constitution from which our approbation of veracity 
arises. 

That there is in the human mind a natural or instinc- 
tive principle of veracity has been remarked by many 
authors, the same part of our constitution which 
prompts to social intercourse prompting also to sin- 
cerity in our mutual communications. Truth is always 
the spontaneous and native expression of our senti- 
ments ; whereas falsehood implies a certain violence 
done to our nature, in consequence of the influence of 
some motive which we are anxious to conceal. 

II. Truth and the Love of Truth.'] "With respect to 
the nature of truth various metaphysical speculations 
have been offered to the world, and various definitions 
have been attempted, both by the ancients and moderns. 
These, however, have thrown but little light on the sub- 
ject, which is not suprising, when we consider that the 
word truth expresses a simple idea or notion, of which 
no analysis or explication is possible. The same obser- 
vation may be made with respect to the words knowl- 
edge and belief. All of them express notions which 
are implied in every judgment of the understanding, 
and which no being can form who is not possessed 
of a rational nature. And, by the way, these notions 
deserve to be added to the list formerly mentioned, as 
exemplifications of the imperfection of the account 
commonly given of the origin of our ideas. They are 
obviously not derived from any particular sense ; and 
they do not seem to be referable to any part of our 
constitution, but to the under standing ; or, in other 
words, to those rational powers which distinguish man 
from the brutes. This language, I know, will appear 
to be very loose and inaccurate to those who have fa- 
miliarized their minds to the common doctrine ; but it 
is a plain and indisputable statement of the fact. 

To acquire knowledge or to discover truth is the 

proper object of curiosity ; — a principle of action which 

is coeval with the first operations of the intellect, and 

which in most minds continues through life to have a 

32* 



378 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

powerful influence, in one way or another, on the char- 
acter and the conduct. It is this principle which puts 
the intellectual 'faculties in motion, and gives them 
that exercise which is necessary for their development 
and improvement; and which, according to the direc- 
tion it takes, and the particular set of faculties it exer- 
cises, is the principal foundation of the diversities of 
genius among men. And as the diversities of genius 
proceed from the different directions in which curiosity 
engages the attention, so the inequalities of genius 
among individuals may be traced in a great measure to 
the different degrees of ardor and perseverance with 
which the curiosity operates. When I say this, I would 
not be understood to insinuate that the different capa- 
cities of individuals are the same; a supposition contra- 
dicted by obvious facts, and contrary to what we should 
be led to conclude from the analogy of the body. I 
only wish to impress on all those who have any con- 
nection with the education of youth the great impor- 
tance of stimulating the curiosity, and of directing it 
to proper objects, as the most effectual of all means 
for securing the improvement of the mind: I may add, 
as one of the most effectual provisions that can be 
made for the happiness of the individual, in conse- 
quence of the resources it furnishes when we are left 
to depend on ourselves for enjoyment ; and in conse- 
quence, also, of the progressive vigor with which it 
operates to the very close of life, in proportion to the 
enlargement of our experience and the extent of our 
information. 

In order, however, to prevent misapprehensions of 
my meaning, it is necessary for me again to remark, 
that the curiosity on which I lay so great a stress is 
that curiosity alone which has truth for its object. 
" There are many men," says Butler, " who have a 
strong curiosity to know what is said, who have no 
curiosity to know what is true" ; — men who value 
knowledge only as furnishing an employment to their 
memory, or as supplying a gratification to their van- 
ity in their intercourse with others. It is a weakness 



VERACITY. 379 

which we may presume has prevailed more or less in 
all ages, but which has been much encouraged in mod- 
ern Europe by that superstitious admiration of antiq- 
uity which has withdrawn so much genius and indus- 
try from the pursuits of science to those of erudition. 
No prejudice can be conceived more adverse to the 
progress of usefu> knowledge, not only as it occasions 
an idle waste of time and labor which might have been 
more profitably employed, but as it contributes power- 
fully to destroy that simplicity and modesty of temper 
which are the genuine characteristics of the true phi- 
losopher. 

I think it of importance to add, that the love of 
truth, where it is the great motive of our intellectual 
pursuits, gains daily an accession of strength as our 
knowledge advances. I have already said, that it is an 
ultimate fact in our nature, and is not resolvable into 
views of utility. Its extensive effects on human hap- 
piness are discovered only in the progress of our ex- 
perience ; but when this discovery is once made, it 
superadds to our instinctive curiosity every stimulus 
which self-love and benevolence can furnish. The con- 
nection between error and misery, between truth and 
happiness, becomes gradually more apparent as our 
inquiries proceed, and produces at last a complete con- 
viction, that, even in those cases where we are unable 
to trace it, the connection subsists. He who feels this 
as he ought will consider a steadfast adherence to the 
truth as an expression of benevolence to man, and of 
confidence in the righteous administration of the uni- 
verse, and will suspect the purity of those motives 
which would lead him to advance the good of his 
species, or the glory of his Maker, by deceit and hy- 
pocrisy. 

III. Means of inculcating- and enforcing- the Duty of 
Veracity.] In offering these remarks, I shall no doubt 
be thought to have taken a very wide circuit in order 
to illustrate the nature of that veracity which is incum- 
bent on us in our intercourse with our fellow-creatures. 



380 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

But it appears to me that the most solid of all founda- 
tions for the uniform and the scrupulous exercise of this 
virtue is to cherish the love of truth in general, and to 
impress the mind with a conviction of its important 
effects on our own happiness and on that of society. 
There is, indeed, a sort of gross and ostensible prac- 
tice of this duty, which is secured by what we call the 
point of honor in modern Europe, which brands with 
infamy every palpable deviation from the truth in mat- 
ters of fact. The law of honor here operates in the 
case of veracity, in some measure, as the law of the 
magistrate operates in the case of justice. But as in 
the latter case a man may be unjust in the sight of 
God and of his own conscience without transgressing 
the letter of any statute, so, in the former, without for- 
feiting his character as a gentleman, he may often incur 
all the guilt of a liar and an impostor. Is it, in a moral 
view, more criminal to misrepresent a fact, than to im- 
pose on the world by what we know to be an unsound 
or a fallacious argument? Is it, in a moral view, more 
criminal to mislead another by a verbal lie, than by 
actions which convey a false idea of our intentions? 
Is it, in a moral view, more criminal, or is it more in- 
consistent with the dignity of a man of true honor, to 
defraud men in a private transaction by an incorrect 
or erroneous statement of circumstances, than to mis- 
lead the public to their own ruin by those wilful devia- 
tions from truth into which we see men daily led by 
views of interest or ambition, or by the spirit of politi- 
cal faction ? Numberless cases, in short, may be fan- 
cied, in which our only security for truth is the virtuous 
disposition of the individual, and where the restraint of 
public opinion has little or no influence. Perhaps I 
should not go too far were I to affirm, that, as there is 
no duty of which the gross and ostensible practice is 
so effectually secured by the manners of modern times, 
so there is none to the obligation of which mankind 
seem in general to be so insensible, considered as moral 
agents, and accountable to God for their thoughts and 
intentions. 



VERACITY. 381 

Among the various causes which have conspired to 
relax our moral principles on this important article, the 
facility which the press affords us in modern times of 
addressing the world by means of anonymous publica- 
tions is probably one of the most powerful. The sal- 
utary restraint which a regard to character imposes, in 
most cases, on our moral deviations, is here withdrawn ; 
and we have no security for the fidelity of the writer, 
but his disinterested love of truth and of mankind. 
The palpable and ludicrous misrepresentations of facts, 
to which we are accustomed from our infancy in the 
periodical prints of the day, gradually unhinge our 
faith in all such communications ; and what we are 
every day accustomed to see, we cease in time to re- 
gard with due abhorrence. Nor is this the only moral 
evil resulting from the licentiousness of the press. The 
intentions of nature in appointing public esteem as 
the reward of virtue, and infamy as the punishment of 
vice, are in a great measure thwarted ; and while the 
fairest characters are left open to the assaults of a 
calumny which it is impossible to trace to its author, 
the opinions of the public may be so divided by the 
artifices of hireling flatterers, with respect to men of 
the most profligate and abandoned lives, as to enable 
them, not only to brave the censures of the world, but 
to retaliate with more than an equal advantage on the 
good name of those who have the rashness to accuse 
them. 

In a free government like ours, the liberty of the 
press has been often and justly called the palladium of 
the constitution ; but it may reasonably be doubted 
whether this liberty would be at all impaired by a reg- 
ulation, which, while it left the press perfectly open 
to every man who was willing openly to avow his 
opinions, rendered it impossible for any individual to 
publish a sentence without the sanction of his name. 
Upon this question, however, considered in a political 
point of view, I shall not presume to decide. Con- 
sidered in a moral light, the advantages of such a regu- 
lation appear to be obvious and indisputable, and the 



382 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

effect could scarcely fail to have a most extensive in 
fluence on national manners.* 

Besides that love of tmth which seems evidently tc 
be an original principle of the mind, there are other 
laws of our nature which were plainly intended to se- 
cure the practice of veracity in our intercourse with 
our fellow-creatures. There are others, too, which, as 
they suppose the practice of this virtue, may be re- 
garded as intimations of that conduct which is con- 
formable to the end and destination of our being. 
Such is that disposition to repose faith in testimony, 
which is coeval with the use of language. Without 
such a disposition, the education of children would be 
impracticable; and accordingly, so far from being the 
result of experience, it seems to be, in the first instance, 
unlimited, — nature intrusting its gradual correction to 
the progress of reason and of observation. This re- 
mark, which I think was first made by Dr. Reid, has 
been since repeated and enforced by Mr. Smith, in his 
Theory of Moral Sentiments. This author observes, 
further, that, " notwithstanding the lessons of caution 
communicated to us by experience, there is scarcely a 
man to be found who is not more credulous than he 
ought to be, and who does not, upon many occasions, 
give credit to tales which not only turn out to be per- 
fectly false, but which a very moderate degree of re- 
flection and attention might have taught him could not 
well be true. The natural disposition is always to 
believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience alone 
that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it 
enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all fre- 
quently gives credit to stories which he himself is after- 
wards both ashamed and astonished that he could pos- 
sibly think of believing." This disposition to repose 
faith in testimony bears a striking analogy, both in its 
origin and in its final cause, to our instinctive expecta- 
tion of the continuance of those laws which regulate 
the course of physical events. 

* For the political aspects of this subject, see Lord Brougham's PoLiti 
col Philosophy, Part III. Chap. XXI. —Ed. 



DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 383 

In infancy the principle of veracity is by no means 
so conspicuous as that of credulity, and it sometimes 
happens that a good deal of care is necessary to cherish 
it. But in such cases it will always be found that 
there is some indirect motive combined with the desire 
of social communication, such as fear, or vanity, or 
mischief, or sensuality. The same principle which 
prompts to social intercourse and to the use of speech 
prompts also to veracity. Nor is it probable that there 
is such a thing as falsehood uttered merely from the 
love of falsehood. 

If this remark be just, it suggests an important prac- 
tical rule in the business of education ; — not to at- 
tempt the cure of lying and deceit by general rules 
concerning the duty of veracity, or by punishments 
inflicted upon every single violation of it, but by study- 
ing to discover and remove the radical evil from which 
it springs, whether it be cowardice, or vanity, or mis- 
chief, or selfishness, or sensuality. Either of these, if 
allowed to operate, will in time unhinge the natural 
constitution of the mind, and produce a disregard to 
truth upon all occasions wmere a temporary convenience 
can be gained by the breach of it. 

From these imperfect hints, it would appear that 
every breach of veracity indicates some latent vice or 
some criminal intention, which an individual is ashamed 
to avow. And hence the peculiar beauty of openness 
or sincerity, uniting in some degree in itself the graces 
of all the other moral qualities of which it attests the 
existence. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OURSELVES. 

Prudence, temperance, and fortitude are no less req- 
uisite for enabling us to discharge our social duties 



384 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

than for securing our own private happiness ; but as 
they do not necessarily imply any reference to our fel- 
low-creatures, they seem to belong most properly to 
this third branch of virtue. 

An illustration of the nature and tendency of these 
qualities, and of the means by which they are to be 
improved and confirmed, although a most important 
article of ethics, does not lead to any discussions of 
so abstract a kind as to require particular attention 
in a work of which brevity is a principal object. It is 
sufficient here to remark, that, independently of all con- 
siderations of utility, either to ourselves or to others, 
these qualities are approved of as right and becoming. 
Their utility, at the same time, or rather necessity, for 
securing the discharge of our other duties, adds greatly 
to the respect they command, and is certainly the chief 
ground of the obligation we lie under to cultivate the 
habits by which they are formed. 

A steady regard, in the conduct of life, to the happi- 
ness and perfection of our own nature, and a diligent 
study of the means by which these ends may be attained, 
is another duty belonging to this branch of virtue. It 
is a duty so important and comprehensive, that it leads 
to the practice of all the rest, and is therefore entitled 
to a very full and particular examination in a system 
of moral philosophy. Such an examination, while it 
leads our thoughts " to the end and aim of our being," 
will again bring under our review the various duties 
already considered ; and, by showing how they all con- 
spire in recommending the same dispositions, will il- 
lustrate the unity of design in the human constitution, 
and the benevolent wisdom displayed in its formation. 
Other subordinate duties, besides, which it would be 
tedious to enumerate under separate titles, may thus 
be placed in a light more interesting and agreeable. 



PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 385 



Section I. 

OF THE DUTY OF EMPLOYING THE MEANS WE POSSESS 
TO SECURE OUR OWN HAPPINESS. 

According to Dr. Hutcheson, our conduct, so far as 
it is influenced by self-love, is never the object of moral 
approbation. Even a regard to the pleasures of a good 
conscience he considered as detracting from the merit 
of those actions which it encourages us to perform. 

That the principle of self-love (or, in other words, 
the desire of happiness) is neither an object of appro- 
bation nor of blame is sufficiently obvious. It is in- 
separable from the nature of man as a rational and a 
sensitive being. It is, however, no less obvious, on the 
other hand, that this desire, considered as a principle of 
action, has by no means a uniform influence on the 
conduct. Our animal appetites, our affections, and 
the other inferior principles of our nature, interfere as 
often with self-love as with benevolence, and mislead 
us from our own happiness as much as from the duties 
we owe to others. 

In these cases, every spectator pronounces that we 
deserve to suffer for our folly and indiscretion ; and 
we ourselves, as soon as the tumult of passion is over, 
feel in the same manner. Nor is this remorse merely 
a sentiment of regret for having missed that happiness 
which we might have enjoyed. We are dissatisfied, 
iot only with our condition, but with our conduct, — 
with our having forfeited by our own imprudence what 
we might have attained.* 

It is true, that we do not feel so warm an indigna- 
tion against the neglect of private good as against per- 
fidy, cruelty, and injustice. The reason probably is, 
that imprudence commonly carries its own punish- 
ment along with it, and our resentment is disarmed by 
pity. Indeed, as that habitual regard to his own hap- 

* Sec Butler's Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue. 

33 



386 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

piness, which every man feels, except when under the 
influence of some violent appetite, is a powerful check 
on imprudence, it was less necessary to provide an ad- 
ditional punishment for this vice in the indignation of 
the world. 

From the principles now stated, it follows, that, in a 
person who believes in a future state, the criminality of 
every bad action is aggravated by the imprudence with 
which it is accompanied. 

It follows, also, that the punishments annexed by the 
' civil magistrate to particular actions render the com- 
mission of them more criminal than it would otherwise 
be ; insomuch, that, if an action, in itself perfectly in- 
different, were prohibited by some arbitrary law, under 
a severe penalty, the commission of that action (unless 
we were called to it by some urgent consideration of 
duty) would be criminal, not merely on account of the 
obedience which a subject owes to established authori- 
ty, but on account of the regard which every man 
ought to feel for his life and reputation. To forge the 
handwriting of another with a fraudulent intention is 
undoubtedly a crime, independently of positive insti- 
tutions ; and it becomes still more criminal in a com- 
mercial country like ours, on account of the extensive 
mischiefs which may arise from it. It is a crime, how- 
ever, not of greater magnitude than many other kinds 
of commercial fraud that might be mentioned. If the 
king, for example, grants his patent to a subject for a 
particular invention, and another counterfeits it, and 
makes use of his name, stamp, and coat of arms, he 
not only injures an indmdual, but imposes on the pub- 
lic. Abstraction made, therefore, of positive law, the 
criminality of the latter act is fully as great as that of 
the former. As the law, however, has made the one 
act capital, and the other not, but only subjected the 
person who commits it to pecuniary damages to the 
individual he has injured, the forgery of a deed be- 
comes incomparably more criminal, in a moral view, 
than the counterfeit of a patent invention. A good 
man, indeed, will neither do the one nor the other. 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. THE EPICUREAN. 38? 

But the man who adds to a fraudulent disposition an 
imprudent disregard to his own life and character is, 
undoubtedly, the more guilty of the two, and meets 
his fate with much less sympathy from others than he 
would receive if he had committed the same act with- 
out knowing its consequences. 

Section II. 

OF THE DIFFERENT THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 

I. General Observations.] The most superficial ob- 
servation of life is sufficient to convince us that happi- 
ness is not to be attained by giving every appetite and 
desire the gratification it demands ; and that it is ne- 
cessary for us to form to ourselves some plan or system 
of conduct, in subordination to which all other objects 
are to be pursued. 

To ascertain what this system ought to be is a prob- 
lem which has, in all ages, employed the speculations 
of philosophers. Among the ancients, the question 
concerning the sovereign good was the principal sub- 
ject of controversy which divided the schools ; and it 
was treated in such a manner as to involve almost ev- 
ery other question of ethics. The opinions maintained 
with respect to it by some of their sects comprehend 
many of the most important truths to which the inquiry 
leads, and leave little to be added but a few corrections 
and limitations of their conclusions. 

These opinions may be all reduced to three : those 
of the Epicureans, of the Stoics, and of the Peripatetics ; 
and, indeed, it does not seem possible to form a concep- 
tion of any scheme of happiness which may not be re- 
ferred to one or other of these three systems. 

II. (1.) The Epicurean^ The fundamental princi- 
ple of the Epicurean system was, that bodily pleasure 
and pain were the sole ultimate objects of desire and 
aversion. These were desired and shunned on their 
own account; every thing else, from its tendency to 



388 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

procure the one of these or to save us from the other, 
Power, for example, riches, reputation, even the virtues 
themselves, were not desirable for their own sake, but 
were valuable merely as being instrumental to procure 
us the objects of oar natural desires. " They who 
place the sovereign good in virtue alone, and who, daz- 
zled by words, overlook the intentions of nature, will 
be delivered from this greatest of all errors, if they will 
only listen to Epicurus. As to these rare and excellent 
qualities on which you set so high a value, who is there 
that would consider them as objects either of praise 
or of imitation, unless from a belief that they are in- 
strumental in adding to the sum of our pleasures ? For 
as we prize the medical art, not on its own account, 
but as subservient to the preservation of health, and 
the art of the pilot, not for the skill he displays, but as 
it diminishes the dangers of navigation, so, also, wis- 
dom, which is the art of living, would be coveted by 
none if it were altogether unprofitable, whereas now 
it is an object of general pursuit, from a persuasion 
that it both guides us to our best enjoyments, and 
points out to us the most effectual means for their at- 
tainment." * 

All the pleasures and pains of the mind (according 
to Epicurus) are derived from the recollection and an- 
ticipation of bodily pleasures and pains ; but this recol- 
lection and anticipation he considered as contributing 
much more to our happiness or misery on the whole, 
than the pleasures and pains themselves. His philoso- 
phy was, indeed, directed chiefly to inculcate this truth, 
and to withdraw our solicitude from the pleasures and 
pains themselves, which are not in our power, to the 
regulation of our recollections and anticipations, which 
depend upon ourselves. He placed happiness, there- 
fore, in ease of body and tranquillity of mind, but much 
more in the latter than in the former, insomuch that he 
affirmed a wise man might be happy in the midst of 
bodily torments. " Hear," says Cicero, " the language 

* Cicero, De Fin., Lib. I. 13. 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. THE EPICUREAN. 389 

of Epicurus on his death-bed. < Epicurus to Herma* 
chus, greeting. — While I am passing the last day oi 
my life, and that the happiest, I write this epistle, op- 
pressed, at the same time, with so many and such 
acute maladies, that it is scarcely possible to conceive 
that my sufferings are susceptible of augmentation. 
All these, however, are amply compensated by the 
mental joy I derive from the recollection of the reason- 
ings and discoveries of which I am the author.' " The 
concluding sentence of this letter does more honor to 
Epicurus than any other part of it. " But you, as is 
worthy of your good-will towards me and philosophy, 
let it be your business to consider yourself as the guar- 
dian and protector of the children of Metrodorus." * 

Epicurus himself is represented as a person of inof- 
fensive and even amiable manners. He is said to 
have taught his philosophy in a garden, where he lived 
a temperate and quiet life, enjoying what Thomson 
calls " the glad poetic ease of Epicurus, — seldom un- 
derstood." He died at an advanced age, and was so 
much beloved and esteemed by his followers, that his 
birthday was annually celebrated as a festival. His 
private virtues, however, were probably, in a great 
measure, the effect of a happy natural constitution ; for 
his philosophy, besides destroying all those supports of 
morality that religion affords, tended avowedly to rec- 
ommend a life of indolent and selfish indulgence, and 
a total abstraction from the concerns and duties of the 
world. Accordingly, we find that many of his disci- 
ples brought so much discredit on their principles by 
the dissoluteness of their lives, that the word Epicurean 
came gradually to be understood as characteristical of 
a person devoted to sensual gratifications. 

The influence which these principles had on the 
manners of the later Romans has been remarked by 
many writers ; and it is not a little curious, that it was 
clearly foreseen, ages before, by their virtuous and en- 



* De Fin., II. 30. The same letter is also found in Diogenes Laertius, 
Lib. X. 

33* 



390 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

lightened progenitors. This fact, which has not been 
sufficiently attended to, deserves the serious considera- 
tion of those who are disposed to call in question the 
effect of speculative opinions on national character. 

It was in the year of Rome 471, and during the con- 
sulate of Fabricius, that the Romans seem to have re- 
ceived the first notice of the Epicurean doctrines. At 
that period the Tarentines had the address to instigate 
the Samnites, and almost all the other Italian states, 
to take arms against the republic, and also prevailed 
on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to give them his assistance. 
In the course of the war, Fabricius, with two other per- 
sons of high rank, was sent to Pyrrhus's court, to treat 
with him about an exchange of prisoners ; and it was 
at a public entertainment given to them upon that oc- 
casion that Cineas, his minister and favorite, gave the 
Roman ambassadors a general idea of the philosophi- 
cal principles which Epicurus had begun to teach at 
Athens about twenty years before. The effect which 
this conversation had on the minds of the Roman am- 
bassadors is an instructive fact in the history of philos- 
ophy, 

" I have frequently heard from some of my friends, 
who were much my seniors," says Cato to Scipio and 
Laelius, " a traditionary anecdote concerning Fabricius. 
They assured me, that, in the early part of their life, 
they were told by certain very old men of their ac- 
quaintance, that, when Fabricius was ambassador at 
the court of Pyrrhus, he expressed great astonishment 
at the account given him by Cineas of a philosopher 
at Athens, who maintained that the love of pleasure 
was universally the leading motive of all human ac- 
tions. My informer added, that, when Fabricius relat- 
ed this fact to M. Curius and Titus Coruncanius, they 
both joined in wishing that Pyrrhus and the whole 
Samnite nation might become converts to this extraor- 
dinary doctrine, as the people who were infected with 
such unmanly principles could not fail, they thought, 
of proving an easy conquest to their enemies. M. Cu- 
yius had been intimately connected with Publius Decius, 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. THE STOIC. 391 

who in his fourth consulate (which was five years be- 
fore the former entered upon that office) gloriously sac- 
rificed his life to the preservation of his country. This 
generous patriot was personally known both to Fa- 
bricius and to Coruncanius ; and they were convinced, 
by what they experienced in their own breasts, as well 
as by the illustrious example of Decius, that there is in 
certain actions an intrinsic rectitude and obligation 
which, with a noble contempt of what the world calls 
pleasure, every great and generous mind will steadily 
keep in view as a sacred rule of conduct, and as the 
chief concern of life." * 

III. (2.) The Stoic.] In opposition to the Epicurean 
doctrines already stated on the subject of happiness, 
the Stoics placed the supreme good in rectitude of con- 
duct, without any regard to the event. They did not, 
however, as has been often supposed, recommend an 
indifference to external objects, or a life of inactivity 
and apathy. On the contrary, they taught that nature 
pointed out to us certain objects of choice and of re- 
jection, and amongst these some to be more chosen 
and avoided than others ; and that virtue consisted in 
choosing and rejecting objects according to their in- 
trinsic value. They admitted that health was to be 
preferred to sickness, riches to proverty ; the prosperity 
of our family, of our friends, of our country, to their 
adversity; and they allowed, nay, they recommended, 

* Cicero, De Senect. The system of morals generally ascribed to Epicu- 
rus is said to have been borrowed from Aristippus, who also taught that 
happiness consisted in bodily pleasure ; but it is probable, as Mr. Smith 
observes, that his manner of applying his principles was altogether his 
own. Indeed, we have the testimony of Diogenes Laertius that Aristippus 
taught that happiness consisted in the present pleasures of the body, and 
not in any mental refinements on these pleasures, according to the system 
of Epicurus. — Lib. 11.187. The life of Epicurus has been written in 
modern times by Gassendi (who also attempted to revive his philosophy, 
Syntagma Philosophize Epicuri), and by Bayle. Heineccius also mentions 
a book entitled, Jacob Rondellus, De Vita et de Moribus Epicuri, which has 
never fallen in my way. [For more modern authorities, see the general 
histories of philosophy by Tennemann, Bitter, and Degerando. Also, 
Warnekros, Apoloyie una 1 Leben Epicurs. Steinhart in Ersch u. (Jfruber. 
Allgem. Encyclop., Vol. XXXV. p. 459 et seq.] 



392 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

the most strenuous exertions to accomplish these de« 
sirable ends. They only contended that these objects 
should be pursued, not as the constituents of our hap- 
piness, but because we believe it to be agreeable to 
nature that we should pursue them ; and that, therefore, 
when we have done our utmost, we should regard the 
event as indifferent. 

That this is a fair representation of the Stoical doc- 
trine has been fully proved by Mr. Harris, in the very 
learned and judicious notes on his Dialogue concern- 
ing Happiness ; a performance which, although not en- 
tirely free from Mr. Harris's peculiarities of thought 
and style, does him so much honor, both as a writer 
and a moralist, that we cannot help regretting, w T hile 
we peruse it, that he should so often have wasted his 
ingenuity and learning upon scholastic subtilties, equal- 
ly inapplicable to the pursuits of science and to the 
business of life. 

" The word ndOos," he observes, " which we usually 
render a passion, means, in the Stoic sense, a perturba- 
tion, and is always so translated by Cicero ; and the 
epithet dnadrjs, when applied to the wise man, does not 
mean an exemption from passion, but an exemption 
from that perturbation which is founded on erroneous 
opinions. The testimony of Epictetus is expressed to 
this purpose. ' I am not,' says he, ' to be apathetic like 
a statue, but I am withal to observe relations, both 
the natural and the adventitious; as the man of relig- 
ion, as the son, as the brother, as the father, as the 
citizen.' And immediately before, he tells us, that * a 
perturbation in no other way ever arises, but either 
when a desire is frustrated, or an aversion falls into 
that which it should avoid.' In which passage," says 
Harris, " it is observable that he does not make either 
desire or aversion nadr), or perturbations, but only the 
cause of perturbations when erroneously conducted." 

From a great variety of passages, which it is unne- 
cessary for me to transcribe, Harris concludes that " the 
Stoics, in the character of their virtuous man, included 
rational desire, aversion, and exultation ; included love 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. THE STOIC. 393 

and parental affection, friendship, and a general benev- 
olence to all mankind; and considered it as a duty 
arising from our very nature not to neglect the welfare 
of public society, but to be ever ready, according to out 
rank, to act cither as the magistrate or as the private 
ciiizen." 

Nor did they exclude wealth from among the objects 
of choice. The Stoic Hecato, in his treatise Of Offices, 
quoted by Cicero, tells us, that " a wise man, while he 
abstains from doing any thing contrary to the customs, 
laws, and institutions of his country, ought to attend 
to his own fortune. For we do not desire to be rich 
for ourselves only, but for our children, relations, and 
friends, and especially for the commonwealth, inas- 
much as the riches of individuals are the wealth of a 
state." * " Nay," says Cicero, on another occasion, 
" if the wise man could mend his condition by adding 
to the amplest possessions the poorest, meanest utensil, 
he would in no degree contemn it." f 

From these quotations it sufficiently appears that the 
Stoical system, so far from withdrawing men from the 
duties of life, was eminently favorable to active virtue. 
Its peculiar and distinguishing tenet was, that our hap- 
piness does not depend on the attainment of the objects 
of our choice, but on the part that we act; but this 
principle was inculcated, not to damp our exertions, but 
to lead us to rest our happiness only on circumstances 
which ive ourselves could command. " If I am going 
to sail," says Epictetus, " I choose the best ship and 
the best pilot, and I wait for the fairest weather that 
my circumstances and duty will allow. Prudence and 
propriety, the principles which the gods have given 
me for the direction of my conduct, require this of me, 
but they require no more; and if, notwithstanding, a 
storm arises, which neither the strength of the vessel 
nor the skill of the pilot is likely to withstand, I give 
myself no trouble about the consequences. All that I 
had to do is done already. The directors of my con- 

* DeOff, III. 15. \ De Finibus, IV. 12. 



394 DUTIES TO OUFSELVES. 

duct never command me to be miserable, to be anxious, 
desponding, or afraid. Whether vvc are to be drowned 
or come to a harbour is the business of Jupiter, not 
mine. I leave it entirely to his determination, nor ever 
break ray rest with considering which way he is likely 
to decide it, but receive whatever comes with equal in- 
difference and security." 

We may observe further, in favor of this noble sys- 
tem, that the scale of desirable objects which it exhib- 
ited was peculiarly calculated to encourage the social 
virtues. It represented, indeed (in common with the 
theory of Epicurus), self-love as the great spring of hu- 
man actions ; but in the application of this erroneous 
principle to practice, its doctrines were favorable to 
the most enlarged, nay, to the most disinterested be- 
nevolence. It taught that the prosperity of two was 
preferable to that of one ; that of a city to that of a 
family ; and that of our country to all partial consid- 
erations. It was upon this very principle, added to a 
sublime sentiment of piety, that it founded its chief 
argument for an entire resignation to the dispensations 
of Providence. As all events are ordered by perfect 
wisdom and goodness, the Stoics concluded that what- 
ever happens is calculated to produce the greatest good 
possible to the universe in general. As it is agreeable 
to nature, therefore, that we should prefer the happi- 
ness of many to a few, and of all to that of many, 
they concluded that every event which happens is pre- 
cisely that which we ourselves would have desired, if 
we had been acquainted with the whole scheme of the 
Divine administration. " In what sense," says Epic- 
tetus, " are some things said to be according to our na- 
ture, and others contrary to it ? It is in that sense in 
which we consider ourselves as separated and detached 
from all other things. For thus it may be said to be 
the nature of the foot to be always clean. But if you 
consider it as a foot, and not as something detached 
from the rest of the body, it must behoove it sometimes 
to trample in the dirt, and sometimes to tread upon 
thorns, and sometimes, too, to be cut off for the sake 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. THE STOIC. 395 

of the whole body ; and if it refuses this, it is no longer 
a foot. Thus, too, ought we to conceive with respect 
to ourselves. What are you? A man. If you con- 
sider yourself as something separated and detached, it 
is agreeable to your nature to live to old age, to be rich, 
to be in health. But if you consider yourself as a man, 
and as a part of the whole, upon account of that whole 
it will behoove you sometimes to be in sickness, some- 
times to be exposed to the inconveniency of a sea voy- 
age, sometimes to be in want, and at last, perhaps, to 
die before your time. Why, then, do you complain? 
Do you not know that by doing so, as the foot ceases 
to be a foot, so you cease to be a man." 

In the writing?, indeed, of some of the Stoics, we 
meet with some absurd and violent paradoxes about 
the perfect felicity of the wise man on the one hand, 
and the equality of misery among all those who fall 
short of this ideal character on the other. " As all the 
actions of the ivise man were perfect, so all those of 
the man who had not arrived at this supreme wisdom 
were faulty, and equally faulty. As one truth could 
not be more true, nor one falsehood more false, than 
another, so an honorable action could not be more hon- 
orable, nor a shameful one more shameful, than an- 
other. As, in shooting at a mark, the man who had 
missed it by an inch had equally missed it with him 
who had done so by a hundred yards, so the man who, 
in what appeared to us the most insignificant action, 
had acted improperly, and without a sufficient reason, 
was equally faulty with him who had done so in what 
appeared to us the most important ; the man who had 
killed a cock, for example, improperly, and without a 
sufficient reason, with him who had murdered his 
father. 

" It is not, however," continues Mr. Smith, " by any 
means probable that these paradoxes formed a part of 
the original principles of Stoicism, as taught by Zeno 
and Cleanthes. It is much more probable that they 
were added to it by their disciple, Chrysippus, whose 
genius seems to have been more fitted lor systematiz- 



396 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

ing the doctrines of his preceptors, and adorning them 
with the imposing appendages of artificial definitions 
and divisions, than for imbibing the sublime spirit 
which they breathed." 

This apology, however, it must be confessed, will 
not extend to all the errors of the Stoical school. In 
particular, it will not extend to the notions it incul- 
cated on the subject of suicide, and, in general, on the 
air of defiance and gayety with which death was to 
be met. But to account even for these, in some meas- 
ure, by the peculiar circumstances of the times when 
this philosophy arose, Mr. Smith observes : — a The 
different republics of Greece were at home almost 
always distracted by the most furious factions, and 
abroad involved in the most sanguinary wars, in w T hich 
each sought, not merely superiority or dominion, but 
either completely to extirpate all its enemies, or, what 
was not less cruel, to reduce them into the vilest of all 
states, — that of domestic slavery. The smallest of 
the greater part of those states, too, rendered it to each 
of them no very improbable event, that it might itself 
fall into that very calamity which it had so frequently 
inflicted or attempted to inflict on its neighbours. In 
this disorderly state of things, the most perfect inno- 
cence, joined to the highest rank and the greatest ser- 
vices to the public, could give no security to any man, 
that, even at home and among his fellow-citizens, he 
was not, at some time or other, from the prevalence of 
some hostile and furious faction, to be condemned to 
the most cruel and ignominious punishment. If he 
was taken prisoner of war, or if the city of which he 
was a member was conquered, he was exposed, if pos- 
sible, to still greater injuries. As an American savage, 
therefore, prepares his death-song, and considers how 
he should act when he has fallen into the hands of his 
enemies, and is by them put to death in the most lin- 
gering tortures, and amidst the insults and derision of 
all the spectators, so a Grecian patriot or hero could 
not avoid frequently employing his thoughts in con- 
sidering what he ought both to suffer and to do in ban 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. THE STOIC. 397 

ishment, in captivity, when reduced to slavery, when 
put to the torture, when brought to the scaffold. It 
was the business of their philosophers to prepare the 
death-song which the Grecian patriots and heroes 
might make use of on the proper occasions ; and of 
all the different sects, the Stoics, I think it must be ac- 
knowledged, had prepared by far the most animated 
and spirited song." * 

After all, it is impossible to deny that there is some 
foundation for a censure which Lord Bacon has some- 
where passed on this celebrated sect. " Certainly," 
says he, " the Stoics bestowed too much cost on death, 
and by their preparations made it more fearful." At 
least, I suspect this may be the tendency of some pas- 
sages in their writings, in such a state of society as 
that in which we live; but in perusing them, we ought 
always to remember the circumstances of those men to 
whom they were addressed, and which are so eloquent- 
ly described in the observations just quoted from Mr. 
Smith. The practical reflection which Bacon adds to 
this censure is invaluable, and is strictly conformable to 
the spirit of the Stoical system, although he seems to 
state it by way of contrast to their principles. " It is 
as natural," says he, " to die, as to be born ; and to a 
little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. 
He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is 
wounded in hot blood, who for a time scarce feels the 
hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon some- 
what that is good doth best avert the dolors of death." f 

" Hi mores, haec duri immota Catonis 
Secta fait, servare modum, finemque tenere, 
Naturamque sequi, patriaeque impendere vitam; 
Nee sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo." J 

* Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect II. Chap. I. 

The preceding extracts from Epictetus are also taken from the same 
chapter, and given in Mr. Smith's translation. 

t Essays or Counsels. Civil and Moral, Essay II. 

% Lucan. Phars., Lib. II. 1. 380. See the fragments of this school, pub- 
lished in Gale's Opuscula Mythologica, Physica, et Ethica. [Also, the gener- 
al histories of philosophy mentioned above ; Hitter and Preller in their 
Historia Philosoph. Gircco- Roman. ; the articles on Zeno in Bayle, Diet., and 
in Bioyraphie Universdle.] 

34 



398 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

IV. (3.) The Peripatetic] The doctrine of the Peri- 
patetics on this subject appears to have coincided with 
that of the Pythagorean school, who denned happiness 
to be " the exercise of virtue in a prosperous life " (xpw^ 
dperrjs iv evrvxia) ; a definition, like several others trans- 
mitted to us from the same source, which unites in a 
remarkable degree the merits of conciseness and of 
philosophical precision. 

In confirmation of this doctrine, the Pythagorean 
school observed that it was not the mere possession, but 
the exercise, of virtue that made men happy. And 
for the proper exercise of virtue, they thought that good 
fortune was as necessary as light is for the exercise of 
the faculty of sight. The utmost length, accordingly, 
which they went, was to say, that the virtuous man in 
adversity was not miserable ; whereas the vicious and 
foolish were miserable in all situations of fortune. In 
another passage they say that the difference between 
God and man is, that God is perfect in himself, and 
needs nothing from without; whereas the nature of 
man is imperfect and defective, and dependent on ex- 
ternal circumstances. Although, therefore, we possess 
virtue, that is but the perfection of one part, namely, 
the mind ; but as we consist both of body and mind, 
the body also must be perfect of its kind. Nor is that 
alone sufficient; but the prosperous exercise of virtue 
requires certain externals ; such as wealth, reputation, 
friends, and, above all, a well- constituted state ; for with- 
out that the rational and social animal is imperfect, 
and unable to fulfil the purposes of its nature. 

The difference between the Peripatetics and Stoics 
in these opinions is beautifully stated by Cicero, in a 
passage strongly expressive of the elevation of his own 
character, as well as highly honorable to the two sects, 
whose doctrines, while he contrasts them with each 
other, he plainly considered as both originating in the 
same pure and ardent zeal for the interests of morality. 
" Pugnant Stoici cum Peripateticis : alteri negant quid- 
quam bonum esse nisi quod honestum sit ; alteri, plu- 
rimum se, et longe, longeque plurimum attribuere ho- 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. 399 

nestati, sed tamen et in corpore, et extra esse quaedam 
bona. Certamen honestum, et disputatio splendida, 
omnis est enim de virtutis dignitate contentio." * 

Section III. 

MEANS OF PROMOTING AND SECURING HAPPINESS. 

I. Introductory Remarks.] From the slight view now 
given of the systems of philosophers with respect to 
the Sovereign Good, it may be assumed as an acknowl- 
edged and indisputable fact, that happiness arises chief- 
ly from the mind. The Stoics undoubtedly expressed 
this too strongly when they said, that to a wise man 
external circumstances are indifferent. Yet it must be 
confessed, that happiness depends much less on these 
than is commonly imagined ; and that, as there is no 
situation so prosperous as to exclude the torments of 
malice, cowardice, and remorse, so there is none so ad- 
verse as to withhold the enjoyments of a benevolent, 
resolute, and upright heart. 

* De Finibus, Lib. II. 21. "The Stoics oppose the Peripatetics: one 
sect denies that any thing can be good unless it is virtuous ; while the oth- 
er, after allowing very exalted and distinguished qualities to virtue, still 
thinks that there are some bodily and external circumstances which are 
good in some degree. The contest is generous ; the difference is glorious 5 
for all the dispute is who shall most ennoble virtue." See Arist., Ethic. 
Nicom., Lib. I. 

[Cousin, in his Fragments Philosophiques, Tome I. p. 279, observes: — 
"Not only do we unceasingly aspire after happiness as sensitive beings, 
but when we have done well, we judge, as intelligent and moral beings, 
that we are worthy of happiness. Hence the necessary principle of merit 
and of demerit, the origin and foundation of all our ideas of reward and 
punishment ; — a principle continually confounded either with the desire 
of happiness or with the moral law. 

" Behold why it is that the question of the sovereign good has never been 
resolved. Philosophers have sought a simple solution for a complex 
question, not having the two principles which, together, are capable of re- 
solving it completely. 

" Epicurean solution : — the satisfaction of the desire of happiness. 

'' Stoical solution : — the fulfilment of the moral law. 

" The true solution is found in the harmony existing between virtue, and 
happiness as merited by it ; for the two elements in this duality are not 
equal. Happiness is the consequent ; virtue is the principle. Virtue, 
though not the sole element of the sovereign good, is always the chief.* 
-Ed.] 



400 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

If, from the sublime idea of a perfectly wise and vir* 
tuous man, we descend to such characters as the world 
presents to us, some important limitations of the Stoi- 
cal conclusions become necessary. Mr. Hume has just- 
ly remarked, that, " as in the bodily system a toothache 
produces more violent convulsions of pain than phthi- 
sis or a dropsy, so, in the economy of the mind, al- 
though all vice be pernicious, yet the disturbance or 
pain is not measured out by nature with exact propor- 
tion to the degree of vice ; nor is the man of highest 
virtue, even abstracting from external accidents, always 
the most happy. A gloomy and melancholy disposi- 
tion is certainly to our sentiments a vice or imperfec- 
tion ; but as it may be accompanied with a great sense 
of honor and great integrity, it may be found in very 
worthy characters, though it is sufficient alone to em- 
bitter life, and render the person afflicted with it com- 
pletely miserable. On the other hand, a selfish villain 
may possess a spring and alacrity of temper, a certain 
gayety of heart, which is rewarded much beyond its 
merit, and, when attended with good fortune, will 
compensate for the uneasiness and remorse arising from 
all the other vices." 

However this may be, it is certain that various men- 
tal qualities, which have no immediate connection with 
moral desert, are necessary to insure happiness. In 
proof of this remark, it is sufficient to consider how 
much our tranquillity is liable to be affected, — 

1. By our temper; 

2. By our imagination ; 

3. By our opinions ; and 

4. By our fiabits. 

In all these respects the mind maybe influenced to a 
great degree by original constitution or by early educa- 
tion ; and when this influence happens to be unfavora- 
ble, it is not to be corrected at once by the precepts of 
philosophy. Much, however, may be done, undoubt- 
edly, in such instances, by our own persevering efforts ; 
and therefore the particulars now enumerated deserve 
our attention, not only from their connection with the 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. TEMPER. 401 

speculative question concerning the essentials of hap* 
pin ess, but on account of the practical conclusions to 
which the consideration of them may lead. 

II. (1.) Influence of the Temper on Happiness.'] The 
word temper is used in different senses. Sometimes we 
apply to it the epithets gay, lively, melancholy, gloomy; 
on other occasions, the epithets fretful, passionate, sul- 
len, cool., equable, gentle. It is in the last sense we use 
it at present, to denote the habitual state of a man's 
mind in point of irascibility ; or, in other words, to 
mark the habitual predominance of the benevolent or 
malevolent affections in his intercourse with his fellow- 
creatures. 

The connection between this part of the character 
of an individual and the habitual state of his mind in 
point of happiness is obvious from what was formerly 
observed concerning the pleasures and pains attached 
respectively to the exercise of our benevolent and ma- 
levolent affections. As Nature has strengthened the 
social ties among mankind, by annexing a certain 
charm to every exercise of good-will and of kindness, 
so she has provided a check on all the discordant pas- 
sions, by that agitation and disquiet which are their 
inseparable concomitant. This is true even with re- 
spect to resentment, how justly soever it may be pro- 
voked by the injurious conduct of others. It is always 
accompanied with an unpleasant feeling, which warns 
us, as soon as we have taken the necessary measures 
for our own security, to banish every sentiment of 
malice from the heart. On the due regulation of this 
part of our constitution, our happiness in life materially 
depends ; and there is no part of it whatever where it 
is in our power, by our persevering efforts, to do more 
to cure our constitutional or our acquired infirmities. 

Resentment was formerly distinguished into instinc- 
tive and deliberate. In some men the animal or in- 
stinctive impulse is stronger than in others. Where 
this is the case, or where proper care has not been taken 
in early education to bring it under restraint, a quick 

O I * 



402 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

or irascible temper is the consequence. This fault 
is frequently observable in affection ate and generous 
characters, and impairs their happiness, not so much 
by the effects it produces on their minds as by the 
eventual misfortunes to which it exposes them. The 
sentiments of ill-will which such men feel are only mo- 
mentary, and the habitual state of their mind is be- 
nevolent and happy; but as their reason is the sport of 
every accident, the best dispositions of the heart can at 
no time give them any security that they shall not, be- 
fore they sleep, experience some paroxysm of insanity, 
which shall close all their prospects of happiness for 
ever. A frequent and serious consideration of the 
fatal consequences which may arise from sudden and 
ungoverned passion cannot fail to have some tendency 
to check its excesses. It is an infirmity which is often 
produced by some fault in early education ; by allow- 
ing children to exercise authority over their dependents, 
and not providing for them, in the opposition of their 
equals, a sufficient discipline and preparation for the 
conflicts they may expect to struggle with in future 
life. 

When the animal resentment does not immediately 
subside, it must be supported by an opinion of bad in- 
tention in its object; and, consequently, when this 
happens to an individual so habitually as to be char- 
acteristic of his temper, it indicates a disposition on 
his part to put unfavorable constructions on the actions 
of others, or (as we commonly express it) to take things 
by the wrong handle. In some instances this may pro- 
ceed from a settled conviction of the worthlessness of 
mankind ; but in general it originates in self-dissatis- 
faction, occasioned by the consciousness of vice or folly, 
which leads the person who feels it to withdraw his at- 
tention from himself by referring the causes of his ill- 
humor to the imaginary faults of his neighbours. Such 
men do not wait till provocation is given them, but look 
out anxiously for occasions of quarrel, creating to them- 
selves, by the help of imagination, an object suited to 
that particular humor they wish to indulge : and, when 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. TEMPER. 403 

their resentment is once excited, they obstinately re- 
fuse to listen to any thing that may be offered in the 
way of extenuation or apology. In feeble minds, this 
displays itself in peevishness, which vents itself lan- 
guidly upon any object it meets. In more vigorous and 
determined minds, it produces violent and boisterous 
passion. For, as Butler has well remarked, both of 
these seem to be the operation of the same principle, 
appearing in different forms, according to the constitu- 
tion of the individual. " In the one case, the humor 
discharges itself at once ; in the other, it is continually 
discharging." 

There is, too, a species of misanthropy, which is 
sometimes grafted on a worthy and benevolent heart. 
When the standard of moral excellence we have been 
accustomed to conceive is greatly elevated above the 
common attainments of humanity, we are apt to be- 
come too difficult and fastidious (if I may use the ex- 
pression) in our moral taste; or, in plainer language, 
we become unreasonably censorious of the follies and 
vices of the age in which we live. In such cases it 
may happen that the native benevolence of the mind, 
by being habitually directed towards ideal characters, 
may prove a source of real disaffection and dislike to 
those with whom we associate. The only effectual 
remedy for this evil (as I have had occasion to observe 
in another connection*) is society or business, together 
with a habit of directing the attention rather to the 
improvement of our own characters, than to a jealous 
and suspicious examination of the motives which in- 
fluence the conduct of our neighbours. 

This last observation leads me to remark, further, 
that one great cause of this perversion of our nature is 
a very common and fatal prejudice, which leads men 
to believe that the degree of their own virtue is pro- 
portioned to the justness and the liveliness of their 
moral feelings ; whereas, in truth, virtue consists neither 
in liveliness of feeling nor in rectitude of judgment, 

* See page 206 of this volume. 



404 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

but in an habitual regard to our sense of duty in the 
conduct of life. To enlighten, indeed, our conscience 
with respect to the part which we ourselves have to 
act, and to cultivate that quick and delicate sense of 
propriety which may restrain us from every offence, how 
trifling soever it may appear, against the laws of mo- 
rality, is an essential part of oar duty ; and what a 
strong sense of duty, aided by a sound understanding, 
will naturally lead to. But to exercise our powers of 
moral judgment and moral feeling on the character and 
conduct of our neighbours is so far from being neces- 
sarily connected with our moral improvement, that it 
has frequently a tendency to withdraw our attention 
from the real state of our own characters, and to flatter 
us with a belief, that the degree in which we possess 
the different virtues is proportioned to the indignation 
excited in our minds by the want of them in others. 
That this rule of judgment is at least not infallible may 
be inferred from the common observation (justified by 
the experience of every man who has paid any atten- 
tion to human life), that the most scrupulous men in 
their own conduct are generally the most indulgent to 
the faults of their fellow-creatures. I will not go quite 
so far as to assert, with Dr. Hutcheson, (although I 
believe his remark has much foundation in truth,) that 
" men have commonly the good or the bad qualities 
which they ascribe to mankind." I shall content my- 
self with repeating, after Mr. Addison, that, " among 
all the monstrous characters in human nature, there 
is none so odious, nor, indeed, so exquisitely ridicu- 
lous, as that of a rigid, severe temper in a worthless 
man";* — an observation which, from the manner in 
which he states it, evidently shows that he did not con- 
sider this union as a very rare occurrence among the 
numberless inconsistencies in our moral judgments and 
habits. 

But what we are chiefly concerned at present to re- 
mark is the tendency of a censorious disposition with 

* Spectator, No. 169. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. TEMPER. 4T)3 

respect to our own happiness. That favorable opinions 
of our species, and those benevolent affections towards 
them which such opinions produce, are sources of ex- 
quisite enjoyment to those who entertain them, no 
person will dispute. But there are two very different 
ways in which men set about the attainment of this 
satisfaction. One set of men aim at modelling the 
world to their own wish, and repine in proportion to 
the disappointments they experience in their plans of 
general reformation. Another, while they do what 
they can to improve their fellow-creatures, consider it 
as their chief business to watch over their own char- 
acters ; and as they cannot succeed to their wish in 
making mankind what they ought to be, they study to 
accommodate their views and feelings to the order of 
Providence. They exert their ingenuity in apologizing 
for folly and misconduct, and are always more dis- 
posed to praise than to blame ; and when they see 
unquestionable and unpardonable delinquencies, they 
avail themselves of such occurrences, not as occasions 
for venting indignation and abuse, but as lessons of 
admonition to themselves, and as calls to attempt the 
amendment of the delinquent by gentle and friendly 
remonstrances. Of these two plans, it is easy to see 
that the one, while it appears flattering to the indolence 
of the individual (because it requires no efforts of self- 
denial), must necessarily engage him in impracticable 
and hopeless efforts. The other, although it requires 
force of mind to put it in execution, is within the reach 
of every man to accomplish in a degree highly impor- 
tant to his own character and to his own comfort. This, 
indeed, I apprehend, is the great secret of happiness, 
— to study to accommodate our own minds to things 
external, rather than to accommodate things external 
to ourselves ; and there are no instances in which the 
practice of the rule is of more consequence than in our 
intercourse with our fellow-creatures. Let us do what 
we can to amend them, but let us trust for our happi- 
ness to what depends on ourselves. Nor is there any 
delusion necessary for this purpose ; for the fairest 



406 



DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 



views of human character are in truth the justest ; and 
the more intimately we know mankind, the less we 
shall be misled by the partialites of pride and self-love, 
and the more shall we be disposed to acknowledge the 
merits and to pardon the frailties of others. 

Another expedient of very powerful effect is to sup- 
press, as far as possible, the external signs of peevish- 
ness or of violence. So intimate is the connection be- 
tween mind and body, that the mere imitation of any 
strong expression has a tendency to excite the corre- 
sponding passion ; and, on the other hand, the suppres- 
sion of the external sign has a tendency to compose the 
passion which it indicates. It is said of Socrates, that 
whenever he felt the passion of resentment rising in 
his mind, he became instantly silent; and I have no 
doubt, that, by observing this rale, he not only avoided 
many an occasion of giving offence to others, but add- 
ed much to the comfort of his own life, by killing the 
seeds of those malignant affections which are the great 
bane of human happiness. 

Something of the same kind, though proceeding 
from a less worthy motive, we may see daily exempli- 
fied in the case of those men who are peevish and un- 
happy in their own families, while in the company of 
strangers they are good-humored and cheerful. A- 
home they give vent to all their passions without 
restraint, and exasperate their original irritability by 
the reaction of that bodily agitation which it occa- 
sions. In promiscuous society the restraints of cere- 
mony render this impossible. They find themselves 
obliged to conceal studiously whatever emotions of dis- 
satisfaction they may feel, and soon come to experi- 
ence, in fact, that gentle and accommodating temper 
of which they have been striving to counterfeit the ap- 
pearance. 

The influence of the temper on happiness is much 
increased by another circumstance ; that the same 
causes which alienate our affections from our fellow- 
creatures are apt to suggest unfavorable views of the 
course of human affairs, and lead the mind by an easy 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION. 40? 

transition to gloomy conceptions of the general order 
of the universe. In this state of mind, when, in the 
language of Hamlet, " Man delights me not" the senti- 
ment of misanthropy seldom fails to be accompanied 
with that dark and hopeless philosophy which Shak- 
speare has, with such exquisite knowledge of the human 
heart, described as springing up with it from the same 
root. " This goodly frame, the earth, appears a sterile 
promontory; — this majestical roof, fretted with golden 
fire, a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors; — 
and Man himself, — noble in reason, infinite in facul- 
ties, — this beauty of the world, this paragon of ani- 
mals, — seems but the quintessence of dust." Such a 
temper and such views are not only to the possessor 
the completion of wretchedness, but, by the proofs they 
exhibit of insensibility and ingratitude towards the 
Great Source of happiness and perfection, they argue 
some defect in those moral feelings to which many men 
lay claim, who affect an indifference to all serious im- 
pressions and sentiments. They argue at least what 
Milton has finely called a " sullenness against Nature" 
— a disposition of mind which no man could possibly 
feel whose temper was rightly constituted towards his 
fellow-creatures. How congenial to the best emotions 
of the heart is the following sentiment in his Tractate 
on Education ! " In those vernal seasons of the year, 
when the air is soft and pleasant, it were an injury 
and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see 
her riches, and partake in her rejoicings with heaven 
and earth." 

III. (2.) Influence of the Imagination on Happiness.) 
One of the principal effects of a liberal education is to 
accustom us to withdraw our attention from the ob- 
jects of our present perceptions, and to dwell at pleas- 
ure on the past, the absent, and the future. How much 
it must enlarge in this way the sphere of our enjoy- 
ment or suffering is obvious ; for (not to mention the 
recollection of the past) all that part of our happiness 
or misery which arises from our hopes or our fears de« 



40S 



DUTIES TO OUESELVJ5* 



rives its existence entirely from the power of imagi- 
nation. 

It is not, however, from education alone that the dif- 
ferences among individuals in respect of this faculty 
seem to arise. Even among those who have enjoyed 
the same advantages of mental culture, we find some 
men in whom it never makes any considerable appear- 
ance, — men whose thoughts seem to be completely 
engrossed with the objects and events with which their 
senses are conversant, and on whose minds the impres- 
sions produced by what is absent and future are so 
comparatively languid, that they seldom or never ex- 
cite their passions or arrest their attention. In others, 
again, the coloring which imagination throws on the 
objects they conceive is so brilliant, that even the pres- 
ent impressions of sense are unable to stand the com- 
parison ; and the thoughts are perpetually wandering 
from this world of realities to fairy scenes of their own 
creation. In such men, the imagination is the princi- 
pal source of their pleasurable or painful sensations 
and their happiness or misery is in a great measure de- 
termined by the gay or melancholy cast which this 
faculty has derived from original constitution, or from 
acquired habits. 

"When the hopes or the fears which imagination in- 
spires prevail over the present importunity of our sen- 
sual appetites, it is a proof of the superiority which the 
intellectual part of our character has acquired over the 
animal ; and as the course of life which wisdom and 
virtue prescribe requires frequently a sacrifice of the 
present to the future, a warm- and vigorous imagination 
is sometimes of essential use, by exhibiting those lively 
prospects of solid and permanent happiness which may 
counteract the allurements of present pleasure. In 
those who are enslaved completely by their sensual ap- 
petites, imagination may indeed operate in anticipat- 
ing future gratification, or it may blend itself with 
memory in the recollection of past enjoyment; but 
where this is the case, imagination is so far from an- 
swering its intended purpose, that it establishes an un- 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION, 409 

natural alliance between our intellectual powers and 
our animal desires, and extends the empire of the lat- 
ter, by filling up the intervals of actual indulgence with 
habits of thought more degrading and ruinous, if pos- 
sible, to the rational part of our being, than the time 
which is employed in criminal gratification. 

In mentioning, however, the influence of imagination 
on happiness, what I had chiefly in view was the ad- 
dition which is made to our enjoyments or sufferings, 
on the whole, by the predominance of hope or of fear 
in the habitual state of our minds. One man is con- 
tinually led, by the complexion of his temper, to fore- 
bode evil to himself and to the world ; while another, 
after a thousand disappointments, looks forward to the 
future with exultation, and feels his confidence in Prov- 
idence unshaken. One principal cause of such differ- 
ences is undoubtedly the natural constitution of the 
mind in point of fortitude. 

It may be worth while here to remark, that what we 
properly call cowardice is entirely a disease of the im- 
agination. It does not always imply an impatience 
under present suffering. On the contrary, it is fre- 
quently observed in men who submit quietly to the 
evils which they have actually experienced, and of 
which they have thus learned to measure the extent 
with accuracy. Nay, there are cases in which patience 
is the offspring of covjardice, the imagination magnify- 
ing future dangers to such a degree, as to render pres- 
ent sufferings comparatively insignificant. Men of this 
description always judge it safer to "bear the ills they 
know, than fly to others that they know not of," and, 
of consequence, when under the pressure of pain and 
disease, scruple to employ those vigorous remedies, 
which, while they give them a chance for recovery, 
threaten them with the possibility of a more imminent 
danger. The brave, on the contrary, are not always 
patient under distress ; and they sometimes, perhaps, 
owe their bravery in part to this impatience. We may 
remark an apt illustration of this observation in the two 
sexes. The male is more courageous, but more impa- 
35 



410 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

tient of suffering ; the female more timid, but more re- 
signed and serene under severe pain and affliction. 

Allowance being made for constitutional biases, the 
two great sources of a desponding imagination are su- 
perstition and skepticism. Of the former, the unhappy 
victims are many, and have been so in all ages of the 
world, although their number may be expected grad- 
ually to diminish in proportion to the progress and the 
diffusion of knowledge. All of us, however, have had an 
opportunity of witnessing enough of its effects in those 
remains which are still to be found, in many parts of 
this country, of the old prejudices with respect to ap- 
paritions and spectres, to be able to form an idea of 
what mankind must have suffered in the ages of 
Gothic ignorance, when these weaknesses of the unin- 
formed mind were skilfully made use of by an ambi- 
tious priesthood as an engine of ecclesiastical policy. 
Skepticism, too, when carried to an extreme, can scarce- 
ly fail to produce similar effects. As it encourages the 
notion that all events are regulated by chance, it it does 
not alarm the mind with terror, it extinguishes at least 
every ray of hope ; and such is the restless activity of 
the mind, that it may be questioned whether the agita- 
tion of fear be a source of more complete wretched- 
ness, than that listlessness which deprives us of all in- 
terest about futurity, and represents to us the present 
moment alone as ours. Nor is this all. A complete 
skepticism is so unnatural a state to the human under- 
standing, that it was probably never realized in any 
one instance. Nay, I believe it will generally be found, 
that, in proportion to the violence of a man's disbelief 
on those important subjects which are essential to hu- 
man happiness, the more extravagant is his credulity 
on other articles, where the fashion of the times does 
not brand credulity as a weakness ; for the mind must 
have something distinct from the objects of sense on 
which to repose itself; and those principles of our na- 
ture on which religion is founded, if they are prevented 
from developing themselves under the direction of an 
enlightened reason, will infallibly disclose therr. selves, 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION. 411 

in one way or another, in the character and the con- 
duct. 

Of this no stronger proof can be produced, than that 
the same period of the eighteenth century, and the same 
part of Europe, which were most distinguished by the 
triumphs of a skeptical philosophy, were also distin- 
guished by a credulity so extraordinary, as to encour- 
age and support a greater number of visionaries and 
impostors than had appeared since the time of the re- 
vival of letters. The pretenders to animal magnetism, 
and the revivers of the Rosicrucian mysteries, are but 
two instances out of many that might be mentioned. 

Such, then, are the miseries of ill-regulated imagina- 
tion, whether arising from constitutional biases or from 
the acquisition of erroneous opinions ; and they are mis- 
eries which, when they affect habitually the state of the 
mind, are sufficient to poison all the enjoyments which 
fortune can offer. To those, on the contrary, whose 
education has been fortunately conducted, this faculty 
opens inexhaustible sources of delight, presenting con- 
tinually to their thoughts the fairest views of mankind 
and of Providence, and, under the deepest gloom of 
adverse fortune, gilding the prospects of futurity. 

I have remarked, in the first volume of my Philoso- 
phy of the Human Mind, that what we call sensibility 
depends in a great measure on the degree of imagina- 
tion we possess ; and hence, in such a world as ours, 
checkered as it is with good and evil, there must be in 
every mind a mixture of pleasure and of pain, propor- 
tioned to the interest which imagination leads it to 
take in the fortunes of mankind. It is even natural 
and reasonable for a benevolent disposition, (notwith- 
standing what Mr. Smith has so ingeniously alleged to 
the contrary,*) to dwell more habitually on the gloomy 
than on the gay aspect of human affairs ; for the fortu- 
nate stand in no need of our assistance ; while, amidst 
the distractions of our own personal concerns, the 
wretched require all the assistance which our imagina- 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III. Chap. III. 



412 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

tion can lend them, to engage our attention to their 
distresses. In this sympathy, however, with the gen- 
eral sufferings of humanity, the pleasure far overbal- 
ances the pain ; not only on account of that secret 
charm which accompanies all the modifications of be- 
nevolence, but because it is they alone whose prospects 
of futurity are sanguine, and whose confidence in the 
final triumph of reason and of justice is linked with all 
the best principles of the heart, who are likely to make 
a common cause with the oppressed and the miserable. 
This, therefore, (although we frequently apply to it the 
epithet melancholy,) is, on the whole, a happy state of 
mind, and has no connection with what we commonly 
call low spirits, — a disease where the pain is unmixed, 
and which is always accompanied, either as a cause or 
an effect, by the most intolerable of all feelings, a senti- 
ment of self-dissatisfaction ; whereas the temper I have 
now alluded to is felt only by those who are at peace 
with themselves and with the whole world. Such is 
that species of melancholy which Thomson has so 
pathetically described as exerting a peculiar influence 
at that season of the year (his own favorite and inspir- 
ing season) when the " dark winds of autumn return," 
and when the falling leaves and the naked fields fill the 
heart at once with mournful presages, and with tender 
recollections. 

" He comes ! he comes ! in every breeze the Power 
Of philosophic melancholy comes ! 
His near approach the sudden starting tear, 
The glowing cheek, the mild, dejected air, 
The softened feature, and the beating heart, 
Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare. 
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes ; 
Inflames imagination ; through the breast 
Infuses every tenderness ; and far 
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought." 

It will not, I think, be denied, that an imagination 
of the cast here described, while it has an obvious ten- 
dency to refine the taste and to exalt the character, 
enlarges very widely, in the man who possesses it, the 
sphere of his enjoyment. It is, however, no less indis- 
putable, that this faculty requires an uncommon share 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION. 413 

of good sense to keep it under proper regulation, and 
to derive from it the pleasures it was intended to afford, 
without suffering it either to mislead the judgment in 
the conduct of life, or to impair our relish for the mod- 
erate gratifications which are provided for our present 
condition. 

The inconveniences of an ill-regulated imagination 
have appeared to some philosophers to be so alarming, 
that they have concluded it to be one of the most es- 
sential objects of education to repress as much as pos- 
sible this dangerous faculty. Bat in this, as in other 
instances, it is in vain to counteract the purposes of 
Nature ; and all that human wisdom ought to attempt 
is to study the ends which she has apparently in view, 
and to cooperate with the means which she has pro- 
vided for their attainment. The very argument on 
which these philosophers have proceeded justifies the 
remark I have now made, and encourages us to follow 
out the plan I have recommended ; for surely the more 
cruel the effects of a deranged imagination, the happier 
are the consequences to be expected from this part of 
our constitution, if properly regulated, and if directed 
to its destined purposes by good sense and philosophy. 
It is justly remarked by an author in the Taller* as an 
acknowledged fact, that, " of all writings, licentious 
poems do soonest corrupt the heart. And why," con- 
tinues he, " should we not be as universally persuaded 
that the grave and serious performances of such as 
write in the most engaging manner, by a kind of Di- 
vine impulse, must be the most effectual persuasive to 
goodness ? The most active principle in our mind is 
the imagination. To it a good poet makes his court 
perpetually, and by this faculty takes care to gain it 
first. Our passions and inclinations come over next, 
and our reason surrenders itself with pleasure in the 
end. Thus the whole soul is insensibly betrayed into 
morality, by bribing the fancy with beautiful and agree- 
able images of those very things that, in the books of 

* No. 98. 
35* 



414 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

the philosophers, appear austere, and have at the best 
but a kind of forbidding aspect. In a word, the poets 
do, as it were, strew the rough paths of virtue so full 
of flowers, that we are not sensible of the uneasiness 
of them, and imagine ourselves in the midst of pleas- 
ures, and the most bewitching allurements, at the time 
we are making a progress in the severest duties of life." 

Even in those men, however, whose education has 
not been so systematically conducted, and whose asso- 
ciations have been formed by accident, notwithstanding 
the many acute sufferings to which they may be ex- 
posed, I am persuaded that (except in some very rare 
combinations of circumstances) this part of our consti- 
tution is a more copious source of pleasure than of 
pain. After all the complaints that have been made 
of the peculiar distresses incident to cultivated minds, 
who would exchange the sensibility of his intellectual 
and moral being for the apathy of those whose only 
avenues of pleasure and pain are to be found in their 
animal nature, — who " move thoughtlessly in the nar- 
row circle of their existence, and to whom the falling 
leaves present no idea but that of approaching win- 
ter " ? 

I shall conclude these very imperfect hints on a most 
important subject with remarking the inefficacy of 
mere reasoning or argument, in correcting the effects of 
early impressions and prejudices. More is to be ex- 
pected from the opposite associations, which may be 
gradually formed by a new course of studies and of 
occupations, or by a complete change of scenes, of hab- 
its, and of society. 

IV. (3.) Influence of Opinions on Happiness.'] By 
opinions are here meant, not merely speculative con- 
clusions to which we give our assent, but convictions 
which have taken root in the mind, and exert a con- 
stant and abiding influence on our dispositions and 
conduct. 

Of these opinions a very great and important part 
are, in the case of all mankind, interwoven by educa. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. OPINIONS. 415 

tion with their first habits of thinking, or insensibly 
imbibed from the manners of the times. 

Where such opinions are erroneous, they may often 
be corrected to a great degree by the persevering ef- 
forts of a reflecting and vigorous mind; but as the 
number of minds capable of reflection is comparatively 
small, it becomes a duty on all who have themselves 
experienced the happy effects of juster and more elevat- 
ed views, to impart, as far as they are able, the same 
blessing to others. The subject is of too great extent 
to be here prosecuted ; but the reader will find it dis- 
cussed at great length in a very valuable section of Dr. 
Ferguson's Principles of Moral and Political Science* 

Of the doctrines contained in this section, the follow- 
ing abstract is given by the same writer in his Insti- 
tutes of Moral Philosophy. 

" It is unhappy to lay the pretensions of human na- 
ture so low as to check its exertions. The despair of 
virtue is still more unhappy than the despair of knowl- 
edge. 

" It is unhappy to entertain notions of what men ac- 
tually are, so high as, upon trial and disappointment, to 
run into the opposite extreme of distrust. 

" It is unhappy to rest our own choice of good quali- 
ties on the supposition, that we are to meet with such 
qualities in other men ; or to apprehend that want of 
merit in other men will dispense with that justice or 
liberality of conduct which we ought to maintain. 

" It is unhappy to consider perfection as the standard 
by which we are to censure others, not as the rule by 
which we are to conduct ourselves. 

" It is a wretched opinion, that happiness consists in 
a freedom from trouble, or in having nothing to do. In 
consequence of this opinion, men complain of what 
might employ them agreeably. By declining every du- 
ty and every active engagement, they render life a bur- 
den, and then complain that it is so. By declining 
business to go in search of amusement, they reject 

* Part II. Chap. I. Sect. VIII. 



416 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

what is fitted to occupy them, and search in vain for 
something else to quicken the languor of a vacant mind. 

" It is therefore unhappy to entertain an opinion, that 
any thing can amuse us better than the duties of our 
station, or than that which we are in the present mo- 
ment called upon to do. 

" It is an unhappy opinion, that beneficence is an ef- 
fort of self-denial, or that we lay our fellow-creatures 
under great obligations by the kindness we do them. 

" It is an unhappy opinion, that any thing whatever 
is preferable to happiness." * 

On the other hand, "it is happy," continues the 
same author, " to value personal qualities above every 
other consideration, and to state perfection as a guide 
to ourselves, not as a rule by which to censure others. 

" It is happy to rely on what is in our own power ; 
to value the characters of a worthy, benevolent, and 
strenuous mind, not as a form merely to be observed in 
our conduct, but as the completion of what we have to 
wish for in human life, and to consider the debase- 
ments of a malicious and cowardly nature as the ex- 
treme misery to which we are exposed. 

" It is happy to have continually in view, that we are 
members of society, and of the community of man- 
kind ; that we are instruments in the hand of God for 
the good of his creatures ; that, if we are ill members 
of society, or unwilling instruments in the hand of God, 
we do our utmost to counteract our nature, to quit our 
station, and to undo ourselves. 



* In illustration of this last remark, Dr. Ferguson quotes in a note the 
following passage from the Tatler: — " There is hardly a man to be found, 
who would not rather be in pain to appear happy, than be really happy to 
appear miserable." 

The author of the Fable of the Bees (see Eemark M.) has also said, — 
" There is nothing so ravishing to the proud," (he should have said to the 
vain.) "as to be thought happy" 

Does not this general anxiety to assume the appearance of happiness 
proceed from the universal conviction of the connection between happiness 
and virtue ? By counterfeiting the outward signs of happiness, a vain 
man, without any offensive violation of modesty, lays claim indirectly to 
all those moral qualities of which happiness is commonly understood to bo 
the fruit and the reward. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. OPINIONS. 417 



u < 



I am in the station which God has assigned me, 1 
says Epictetus. With this reflection, a man may be 
nappy in every station ; without it, he cannot be hap- 
py in any. Is not the appointment of God sufficient 
to outweigh every other consideration ? This rendered 
the condition of a slave agreeable to Epictetus, and 
that of a monarch to Antoninus. This consideration 
renders any situation agreeable to a rational nature, 
which delights not in partial interests, but in universal 
good." 

This excellent passage contains a summary of the 
most valuable principles of the Stoical school. One 
of their doctrines, however, I could have wished that 
Dr. Ferguson had touched upon with his masterly 
hand ; I mean that which relates to the inconsistencies 
which most men fall into in their expectations of hap- 
piness, as well as in the estimates they form of the 
prosperity of others. The following quotation from 
Epictetus will explain sufficiently the doctrine to which 
I allude. 

" What is more reasonable, than that they who take 
pains for any thing should get most in that particular 
for which they take pains ? They have taken pains for 
power, you for right principles ; they for riches, you for 
a proper use of the appearances of things. See wheth- 
er they have the advantage of you in that for which 
you have taken pains, and which they neglect. If they 
are in power and you not, why will you not speak the 
truth to yourself, that you do nothing for the sake of 
power, but that they do every thing ? ' No, but since I 
take care to have right principles, it is more reasonable 
that I should have power.' Yes, in respect to what you 
take care about, — your principles. But give up to oth- 
ers the things in which they have taken more care than 
you. Else it is just as if, because you have right prin- 
ciples, you should think it fit that, when you shoot an 
arrow, you should hit the mark better than an archer, 
or that you should forge better than a smith." 

Upon the foregoing passage a very ingenious and el- 
egant writer, Mrs. Barbauid, has written a commentary 



418 



DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 



so fall of good sense and of important practical mo 
rality, that I am sure I run no hazard of trespassing on 
the patience of the reader by the length of the follow- 
ing extracts. 

" As most of the unhappiness in the world arises 
rather from disappointed desires than from positive evil, 
it is of the utmost consequence to attain just notions 
of the laws and order of the universe, that we may not 
vex ourselves with fruitless wishes, or give way to 

groundless and unreasonable discontent We 

should consider this world as a great mart of commerce, 
where fortune exposes to our view various commodi- 
ties, riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. 
Exery thing is marked at a settled price. Our time, 
our labor, our ingenuity, is so much ready money, 
which we are to lay out to the best advantage. Ex- 
amine, compare, choose, reject ; but stand to your own 
judgment, and do not, like children, when you have 
purchased one thing, repine that you do not possess 
another which you did not purchase. Such is the force 
of well-regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous 
exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will gen- 
erally insure success. Would you, for instance, be 
rich ? Do you think that single point worth the sacri- 
ficing every thing else to ? You may, then, be rich. 
Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings, 
from toil and patient diligence, and attention to the mi- 
nutest articles of expense and profit. But you must 
give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a 
free, unsuspicious temper. If you preserve your integ- 
rity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. 
Those high and lofty notions of morals which you 
brought with you from the schools must be considera- 
bly lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jeal- 
ous and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to 
do hard, if not unjust, things; and as for the nice em- 
barrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is 
necessary for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. 
You must shut your heart against the Muses, and bo 
content to feed your understanding with plain house- 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. HABITS. 419 

hold truths. In short, you must not attempt to en- 
large your ideas, or polish your taste, or refine your 
sentiments, but must keep on in one beaten track, with- 
out turning aside either to the right hand or to the 
left. ' But I cannot submit to drudgery like this ; I 
feel a spirit above it.' 'T is well: be above it then; 

only do not repine that you are not rich 

" ' But is it not some reproach upon the economy of 
Providence, that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fel- 
low, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half 
a nation ? ' Not in the least. He made himself a mean, 
dirty fellow for that end." * 

V. (4.) Influence of Habits on Happiness.'] The effect 
of habit in reconciling our minds to the inconveniences 
of our situation was formerly remarked, and an argu- 
ment was drawn from it in proof of the goodness of 
our Creator, who, besides making so rich a provision 
of objects suited to the principles of our nature, has 
thus bestowed on us a power of accommodation to 
external circumstances, which these principles teach 
us to avoid. 

This tendency of the mind, however, to adapt itself 
to the objects with which it is familiarly conversant, 
may, in some instances, not only be a source of occa- 
sional suffering, but may disqualify us for relishing the 
best enjoyments which human life affords. The habits 
contracted during infancy and childhood are so much 
more inveterate than those of our maturer years, that 
they have been justly said to constitute a second na- 
ture ; and if, unfortunately, they have been formed 
amidst circumstances over which we have no control, 
they leave us no security for our happiness but the 
caprice of fortune. To habituate the minds of children 
to those occupations and enjoyments alone, which it is 
in the power of an individual at all times to command; 
is the most solid foundation that can be laid for their 
future tranquillity. 

* Works, Vol. II. p. 21. 



120 DUTIES TO OURSELVES- 

Dr. Paley, with that talent for familiar and happy il- 
*ustration for which he is so justly celebrated, has said : 
— " The art in which the secret of human happiness 
(n a great measure consists is, to set the habits in such 
a manner that every change may be a change for the 
better. The habits themselves are much the same ; for 
whatever is made habitual becomes smooth and easy, 
and nearly indifferent. The return to an old habit is 
'ikewise easy, whatever the habit be. Therefore the 
advantage is with those habits which allow of indul- 
gence in the deviation from them. The luxurious re- 
ceive no greater pleasure from their dainties than the 
peasant does from his bread and cheese ; but the peas- 
ant, whenever he goes abroad, finds a feast, whereas 
the epicure must be well entertained to escape disgust. 
Those who spend every day at cards, and those who 
go every day to plough, pass their time much alike ; 
intent upon what they are about, wanting nothing, re- 
gretting nothing, they are both for the time in a state 
of ease ; but then whatever suspends the occupation 
of the card-player distresses hirn, whereas to the laborer 
every interruption is refreshment ; and this appears in 
the different effect that Sunday produces on the two, 
which proves a day of recreation to the one, but a 
lamentable burden to the other. The man who has 
learned to live alone feels his spirit enlivened whenever 
he enters into company, and takes his leave without 
regret. Another, who has long been accustomed to a 
crowd, experiences in company no elevation of spirits 
nor any greater satisfaction than what the man of a 
retired life finds in his chimney-corner. So far their 
conditions are equal ; but let a change of place, fortune, 
or situation separate the companion from his circle, his 
visitors, his club, common room, or coffee-house, and the 
difference of advantage in the choice and constitution 
of the two habits will show itself. Solitude comes to 
the one clothed with melancholy ; to the other it brings 
liberty and quiet. You will see the one fretful and 
restless, at a loss how to dispose of his time till the 
hour come round that he can forget himself in bed; 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. HABITS. 421 

the other easy and satisfied, taking up his book or his 
pipe as soon as he finds himself alone, ready to admit 
any little amusement that casts up, or to turn his hands 
and attention to the first business that presents itself, 
or. content without either, to sit still and let his trains 
of thought glide indolently through his brain, without- 
much use, perhaps, or pleasure, but without hankering 
after any thing better, and without irritation. A reader 
who has inured himself to books of science and argu- 
mentation, if a novel, a well-written pamphlet, an ar- 
ticle of news, a narrative of a curious voyage, or the 
journal of a traveller, comes in his way, sits down to* 
the repast with relish, enjoys his entertainment while 
it lasts, and can return when it is over to his graver 
reading without distaste. Another, with whom noth- 
ing will go down but works of humor and pleasantry, 
or whose curiosity must be interested by perpetual 
novelty, will consume a bookseller's window in half a 
forenoon, during which time he is rather in search of 
diversion than diverted; and as books to his taste are 
few and short, and rapidly read over, the stock is soon 
exhausted, when he is left without resource from this 
principal supply of harmless amusement." * 

As a supplement to the remarks of Paley, I shall 
quote a short passage from Montaigne, containing an 
observation relative to the same subject, which, although 
stated in a form too unqualified, seems to me highly 
worthy of attention. " We must not rivet ourselves 
so fast to our humors and complexions. Our chief 
business is to know how to apply ourselves to various 
customs. For a man to keep himself tied and bound 
by necessity to one only course is but bare existence, 
not living. It was an honorable character of the elder 
Cato, — * So versatile was his genius, that, whatever 
he took in hand, you would be apt to say that he was 
formed for that very thing only.' Were I to choose for 
myself, there is no fashion so good that I should care 
to be so wedded to it as not to have it in my power to 



Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. VI. 

3(5 



422 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

disengage myself from it. Life is a motion, uneven, 
irregular, and ever varying its direction. A man is not 
his own friend, much less his own master, but rather a 
slave to himself, who is eternally pursuing his own 
humor, and such a bigot to his inclinations that he is 
not able to abandon or to alter them." * 

The only thing to be censured in this passage is, 
that the author makes no distinction between good and 
bad habits; between those which we are induced to 
cultivate by reason, and by the original principles of 
our nature, and those which reason admonishes us 1o 
shun, on account of the mischievous consequences with 
which they are likely to be followed. With respect to 
these two classes of habits, considered in contrast with 
each other, it is extremely worthy of observation, that 
the former are incomparably more easy in the acquisi- 
tion than the latter; while the latter, when once ac- 
quired, are (probably in consequence of this very cir- 
cumstance, the difficulty of overcoming our natural 
propensities) of at least equal efficacy in subjecting all 
the powers of the will to their dominion. 

Of the peculiar difficulty of shaking off such inveter- 
ate habits as were at first the most repugnant to oui 
taste and inclinations, we have a daily and a melan- 
choly proof in the case of those individuals who have 
suffered themselves to become slaves to tobacco, to 
opium, and to other intoxicating drugs, which, so far 
from possessing the attractions of pleasurable sensa- 
tions, are in a great degree revolting to an unvitiated 
palate. The same thing is exemplified in many of 
those acquired tastes which it is the great object of the 
art of cookery to create and to gratify ; and still more 
remarkably in those fatal habits which sometimes steal 
on the most amiable characters, under the seducing 
form of social enjoyment, and of a temporary respite 
from the evils of life. 

I am inclined, however, to think that Montaigne 
meant to restrict his observations chiefly, if not solely, 

* Essays, Book III. Chap. III. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. HABITS. 423 

to habits which are indifferent, or nearly indifferent, in 
their moral tendency, and that all he is to be under- 
stood as asserting amounts to this, — that we ought 
not, in matters connected with the accommodations of 
human life, to enslave ourselves to one set of habits 
in preference to another. In this sense his doctrine is 
ju^t and important.* 

* On the subject treated of in this section, see Degerando, Du Perfec- 
tionnement Moral et de V Education de soi-meme. It has been translated into 
English with this title: Self-Education; or the Means and Art of Moral 
Progress. Also, Carpenter's Principles of Education, and Combe's Con- 
stitution of Man. — Ed. 



BOOK IV. 

OF THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE GENERAL DEFINITION OF VIRTUE. 

Having taken a cursory survey of the chief branches 
of our duty, we are prepared to enter on the general 
question concerning the nature and essence of virtue. 
In fixing on the arrangement^ of this part of my sub- 
ject, it appeared to me more agreeable to the estab- 
lished rules of philosophizing, to consider, first, our 
duties in detail; and, after having thus laid a solid 
foundation in the way of analysis, to attempt to rise 
to the general idea in which all our duties concur, than 
to circumscribe our inquiries, at our first outset, within 
the limits of an arbitrary and partial definition. What 
I have now to offer, therefore, will consist of little more 
than some obvious and necessary consequences from 
principles which have been already stated. 

The various duties which have been considered all 
agree with each other in one common quality, that of 
being obligatory on rational and voluntary agents; and 
they are all enjoined by the same authority, — the au- 
thority of conscience. These duties, therefore, are but 
different articles of one law, which is properly expressed 
by the word virtue. 

As all the virtues are enjoined by the same authority, 
(the authority of conscience,) the man whose ruling 
principle pi action is a sense of duty will observe all 
the different virtues with the same reverence and the 
same zeal. He who lives in the habitual neglect of any 



DEFINITION OF VIRTUE. 425 

one of them shows plainly, that, where his conduct 
happens to coincide with what the rules of morality 
prescribe, it is owing merely to an accidental agreement 
between his duty and his inclination ; and that he is 
not actuated by that motive which can alone render 
our conduct meritorious. It is justly said, therefore, 
that to live in the habitual practice of any one vice is 
to throw off our allegiance to conscience and to our 
Maker, as decidedly as if we had violated all the rules 
which duty prescribes ; and it is in this sense, I presume, 
that we ought to interpret that passage of the sacred 
writings in which it is said, " Whosoever shall keep 
the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty 
of all." * 

The word virtue, however, (as I shall have occasion 
to remark more particularly in the next section,) is ap- 
plied, not only to express a particular course of exter- 
nal conduct, but to express a particular species or de- 
scription of human character. When so applied, it seems 
properly to denote a habit of mind, as distinguished 
from occasional acts of duty. It was formerly said, that 
the characters of men receive their denominations of 
covetous, voluptuous, ambitious, &c, from the particu- 
lar active principle which prevailingly influences the 
conduct. A man, accordingly, whose ruling or habitual 
principle of action is a sense of duty, or a regard to 
what is right, may be properly denominated virtuous. 
Agreeably to this view of the subject, the ancient Py- 
thagoreans defined virtue to be "e^is- rod SeWos,f the habit 
of duty, — the oldest definition of virtue of which we 
have any account, and one of the most unexceptionable 
which is yet to be found in any system of philosophy. 

This account of virtue coincides very nearly with 
what I conceive to be Dr. Reid's, from some passages 
in his Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. 
Virtue he seems to consider as consisting " in a fixed 
purpose or resolution to act according to our sense of 
duty." " We consider the moral virtues as inherent 

* James ii. 10. t Gale's Opuscula Mythologica, p. 690. 

36* 



426 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

in the mind of a good man, even where there is no op 
portunity of exercising them. And what is it in tht» 
mind which we can call the virtue of justice when it U> 
not exercised ? It can be nothing but a fixed purpose* 
or determination to act according to the rules of justice 
when there is opportunity." 

With all this I perfectly agree. It is the fixed pur 
pose to do what is right, which evidently constitutes 
what we call a virtuous disposition. But it appears to 
me that virtue, considered as an attribute of character 
is more properly defined by the habit which the fixec 1 
purpose gradually forms, than by the fixed purpose it- 
self. It is from the external habit alone that other men 
can judge of the purpose ; and it is from the uniformi 
ty and spontaneity of his habit that the individual him 
self must judge how far his purposes are sincere and 
steady. 

These observations lead to an explanation of what 
has at first sight the appearance of paradox in the ethical 
doctrines of Aristotle, that where there is self-denial 
there is no virtue. That the merit of particular actions 
is increased by the self-denial with which they are ac- 
companied cannot be disputed ; but it is only when we 
are learning the practice of our duties that this self- 
denial is exercised (for the practice of morality, as well 
as of every thing else, is facilitated by repeated acts) ; 
and therefore, if the word virtue be employed to express 
that habit of mind which it is the great object of a 
good man to confirm, it will follow, that, in proportion 
as he approaches to it, his efforts of self-denial must 
diminish, and that all occasion for them would cease it 
his end were completely attained. 

The definition of virtue given by Aristotle, as con- 
sisting in " right practical habits, voluntary in their ori- 
gin" is well illustrated by what Plutarch has told us 
of the means by which he acquired the mastery over 
his irascible passions. " I have always approved," says 
he, " of the engagements and vows imposed on them- 
selves from motives of religion, by certain philosophers, 
to abstain from wine, or from some other favorite in- 



DEFINITION OF VIRTUE. 42? 

dutgence, for the space of a year. I have also approved 
of the determination taken by others not to deviate 
from the truth, even in the lightest conversation, during 
a particular period. Comparing my own mind with 
theirs, and conscious that I yielded to none of them in 
reverence for God, I tasked myself, in the first instance 
not to give way to anger upon any occasion for several 
days. I afterwards extended this resolution to a month 
or longer ; and having thus made a trial of what I 
could do, I have learned at length never to speak but 
with gentleness, and so carefully to watch over my 
temper as never to purchase the short and unprofitable 
gratification of venting my resentment at the expense 
of a lasting and humiliating remorse." * 

I must not dismiss this topic without recommending, 
not merely to the perusal, but to the diligent study, of 
all who have a taste for moral inquiries, Aristotle's 
Nicomachean Elides, in which he has examined, with 
far greater accuracy than any other author of antiquity, 
the nature of habits considered in their relation to our 
moral constitution. The whole treatise is indeed of 
great value, and, with the exception of a few passages, 
almost justifies the warm and unqualified eulogium 
pronounced upon it by a learned divine (Dr. Rennel) 
before the University of Cambridge; in which he goes 
so far as to assert, that " it affords not only the most 
perfect specimen of scientific morality, but exhibits also 
the powers of the most compact and best constructed 
system which the human intellect ever produced upon 
any subject; enlivening occasionally great severity of 
method, and strict precision of terms, by the sublimest, 
though soberest, splendor of diction." f 

* I)e Ira. 

t We have several English translations of this work ; one by Dr. Gillies; 
another by Thomas Taylor ; another, the best, by R. W. Browne, in 
John's Classical Library. — Ed. 



428 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON AN AMBIGUITY IN THE WORDS RIGHT AND 
WRONG, VIRTUE AND VICE. 

The epithets right and virong, virtuous and vicious, 
are applied sometimes to external actions, and some- 
times to the intentions of the agent. A similar ambi- 
guity may be remarked in the corresponding words in 
other languages. 

This ambiguity is owing to various causes, which it 
is not necessary at present to trace. Among other cir- 
cumstances, it is owing to the association of ideas, 
which, as it leads us to connect notions of elegance or 
of meanness with many arbitrary expressions in lan- 
guage, so it often leads us to connect notions of right 
and wrong with external actions, considered abstractly 
from the motives which produced them. It is owing 
(at least in part) to this, that a man who has been in- 
voluntarily the author of any calamity to another can 
hardly by any reasoning banish his feelings of remorse ; 
and, on the other hand, however wicked our purposes 
may have been, if by any accident we have been pre- 
vented from carrying them into execution, we are apt 
to consider ourselves as far less culpable than if we had 
perpetrated the crimes that we had intended. It is 
much in the same manner that we think it less crimi- 
nal to mislead others hy hints, or looks, or actions, than 
by a verbal lie; and, in general, that we think our guilt 
diminished if we can only contrive to accomplish our 
ends without employing those external signs, or those 
external means, with which we have been accustomed 
to associate the notions of guilt and infamy. Shak- 
speare has painted with philosophical accuracy this nat- 
ural subterfuge of a vicious mind, in which the sense 
of duty still retains some authority, in one of the ex- 
quisite scenes between King John and Hubert: — 

"Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause, 
When I spake darkly what I purposed ; 



ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE RIGHT. 429 

Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face, 

As bid me tell my tale in express words ; 

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off, 

And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me. 

But thou didst understand me by my signs, 

And didst in signs again parley with sin. ,: 

As this twofold application of the words right and 
wrong to the intentions of the mind, and to external 
actions, has a tendency, in the common business of 
life, to affect our opinions concerning the merits of in- 
dividuals, so it has misled the theoretical speculations 
of some very eminent philosophers in their inquiries 
concerning the principles of morals. It was to obviate 
the confusion of ideas arising from this ambiguity of 
language that the distinction between absolute and rel- 
ative rectitude was introduced into ethics; and as the 
distinction is equally just and important, it will be 
proper to explain it particularly, and to point out its 
application to one or two of the questions which have 
been perplexed by that vagueness of expression which 
it is our object at present to correct. 

An action may be said to be absolutely right, when 
it is in every respect suitable to the circumstances in 
which the agent is placed ; or, in other words, when it 
is such as, with perfectly good intentions, under the 
guidance of an enlightened and well-informed under- 
standing, he would have performed. 

An action may be said to be relatively right, when 
the intentions of the agent are sincerely good, whether 
his conduct be suitable to his circumstances or i?ot. 

According to these definitions, an action rpay be 
right in one sense and wrong in another; — an ambi- 
guity in language, which, how obvious soever, bas not 
always been attended to by the writers on morals. 

It is the relative rectitude of an action which deter- 
mines the moral desert of the agent ; but it is its abso- 
lute rectitude which determines its utility to his world- 
ly interests, and to the welfare of society. And it is 
only so far as absolute and relative rectitude coincide, 
that utility can be affirmed to be a quality of virtue. 

A strong sense of duty will indeed induce us to avail 



430 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

ourselves of all the talents we possess, and of all the 
information within our reach, to act agreeably to the 
rules of absolute rectitude. And if we fail in doing so, 
our negligence is criminal. " Crimes committed through 
ignorance," as Aristotle has very judiciously observed, 
" are only excusable when the ignorance is involunta- 
ry; for when the cause of it lies in ourselves, it is then 
justly punishable. The ignorance of those laws which 
all may know if they will does not excuse the breach 
of them ; and neglect is not pardonable where atten- 
tion ought to be bestowed. But perhaps we are inca- 
pable of attention. This, however, is our own fault, 
since the incapacity has been contracted by our contin- 
ual carelessness, as the evils of injustice and intemper- 
ance are contracted by the daily commission of iniqui- 
ty and the daily indulgence in voluptuousness. For 
sach as our actions are, such must our habits be- 
come." * 

Notwithstanding, however, the truth and the impor- 
tance of this doctrine, the general principle already stat- 
ed remains incontrovertible, that in every particular in- 
stance our duty consists in doing what appears to us to 
be right at the time ; and if, while we follow this rule, 
we should incur any blame, our demerit does not arise 
from acting according to an erroneous judgment, but 
from our previous misemployment of the means we 
possessed for correcting the errors to which our judg- 
ment is liable.f 

From these principles it follows, that actions, al- 
though materially right, are not meritorious with re- 
spect to the agent, unless performed from a sense of 
duty. Aristotle inculcates this doctrine in many parts 
of his Elides. J To the same purpose, also, Lord 
Shaftesbury: — "In this case alone it is we call any 
creature worthy or virtuous, when it can attain to the 



* Aristotle's Ethics, by Gillies, p. 305. 

t A distinction similar to that now made between absolute and relative 
rectitude was expressed amon^ the schoolmen by the phn.*es materiel and 
formal virtue. 

% See Ethic. Nic., Lib. IV. Cap. I. ; Lib. VI. Cap. V. 



OFFICE OF REASON. 431 

speculation or sense of what is morally good or ill, ad- 
mirable or blamable, right or wrong. For though we 
may vulgarly call an ill horse vicious, yet we never say 
of a good one, nor of any mere changeling or idiot 
though never so good-natured, that he is loorbhy or vir- 
tuous. So that if a creature be generous, kind, con- 
stant, and compassionate, yet if he cannot reflect on 
what he himself does or sees others do, so as to take 
notice of what is worthy and honest, and make that 
notice or conception of worth and honesty to be an ob- 
ject of his affection, he has not the character of being 
virtuous, for thus, and no otherwise, he is capable of 
having a sense of right or wrong." * 



CHAPTER III. 



OF THE OFFICE AND USE OF REASON IN THE PRAC- 
TICE OF MORALITY. 

I formerly observed, that a strong sense of duty, 
while it leads us to cultivate with care our good dispo- 
sitions, will induce us to avail ourselves of all the 
means in our power for the wise regulation of our ex- 
ternal conduct. The occasions on which it is neces- 
sary for us to employ our reason in this way are chiefly 
the three following : — 

1. When we have ground for suspecting that our 
moral judgments and feelings may have been warped 
and perverted by the prejudices of education. 

* Inquiry concerning Virtue, Book I. Part II. Sect. III. Dr. Price, in 
kis Review, Chap. VIII., has made a number of judicious observations on 
this subject; and Dr. Reid, in his Essays on- the Active Powers, has a par- 
ticular chapter allotted to the consideration of this very question, " Wheth- 
er an action deserving moral approbation must be done with the belief of 
its being morally good ? " in which the doctrine he endeavours to establish 
is precisely the same with that which has been now stated. Compare 
Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Book III. Part II. Sect. L, where this 
conclusion is disputed. 



432 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

I formerly showed that the moral faculty is an origi- 
nal principle of the human constitution, and not the 
result (as Mandeville and others suppose) of habits 
superinduced by systems of education planned by poli- 
ticians and divines. The moral faculty, indeed, like the 
faculty of reason, (which forms the most essential of 
its elements,) requires care and cultivation for its devel- 
opment ; and, like reason, it has a gradual progress, 
both in the case of individuals and of societies. But 
it does not follow from this that the former is a ficti- 
tious principle, any more than the latter, with respect to 
the origin of which I do not know that any doubts 
have been suggested by the greatest skeptics. 

Although, however, the moral faculty is an original 
part of the human frame, and although the great laws 
of morality are engraven- on every heart, it is not in 
this wa}i that the greater part of mankind arrive at 
their first knowledge of them. The infant mind is 
formed by the care of our early instructors, and for a 
long time thinks and acts in consequence of the con- 
fidence it reposes in their superior judgment. All this 
is undoubtedly agreeable to the design of Nature; and, 
indeed, if the case were otherwise, the business of the 
world could not possibly go on ; for nothing can be 
plainer than this, that the multitude, (at least as socie- 
ty is actually constituted,) condemned as they are to 
laborious employments inconsistent with the cultiva- 
tion of their mental faculties, are wholly incapable of 
forming their own opinions on the most important 
questions which can occupy the human mind. It is 
evident, at the same time, that, as no system of educa- 
tion can be perfect, many prejudices must mingle with 
the most important and best ascertained truths ; and as 
the truths and the prejudices are both acquired from the 
same source, the incontrovertible evidence of the one 
serves, in the progress of human reason, to support and 
confirm the other. Hence the suspicious and jealous 
eye with which we ought to regard all those principles 
which we have at first adopted- without due examina- 
tion, — a duty doubly incumbent on those whose ouin- 



OFFICE OF REASON. 433 

ions are likely, from their rank and situation in society, 
to influence those of the multitude, and whose errors 
may eventually be instrumental in impairing the mor- 
als and the happiness of generations yet unborn. 

2. A second instance in which the exercise of reason 
may be requisite for an enlightened discharge of our 
duty occurs in those cases where there appears to be 
an interference between different duties, and where of 
course it seems to be necessary to sacrifice one duty 1o 
another. 

In the course of the foregoing speculations, I have 
frequently taken notice of the coincidence of all our 
virtuous principles of action in pointing out to us the 
same line of conduct ; and of the systematical consist- 
ency and harmony which they have a tendency to pro- 
duce in the moral character. Notwithstanding, how- 
pver. this general and indisputable fact, it must be 
owned that cases sometimes occur in which they seem 
at first view to interfere with each other, and in which, 
ot consequence, the exact path of duty is not altogeth- 
er so obvious as it commonly is. Thus, every man 
feels it incumbent on him to have a constant regard to 
ike welfare of society, and also to his own happiness. 
On the whole, these two interests will be found, by the 
most superficial inquirer, to be inseparably connected ; 
but, at the same time, it cannot be denied that cases 
may be fancied in which it seems necessary to make a 
sacrifice of the one to the other. 

In such cases, when the public happiness is very 
great, and the private comparatively inconsiderable, 
there is no room for hesitation ; but the former may be 
easily conceived to be diminished, and the latter to be 
increased, to such an amount as to render the exact 
propriety of conduct very doubtful ; more especially 
when it is considered, that, cceteris paribus, a certain 
degree of preference to ourselves is not only justifiable, 
but morally right. In like manner, the attachments of 
nature or of friendship, or the obligations of gratitude, 
of veracity, or of justice, may interfere with private or 
public good ; and it may not be easy to say, whether 
37 



434 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

all of these obligations may not sometimes be super- 
seded by paramount considerations of utility. At least, 
these are points on which moralists have been arguing 
for some thousands of years, without having yet come 
to a determination in which all parties are agreed. It 
is much in the same manner that the different founda 
/ions of property may give rise to different claims ; and 
it may be exceedingly difficult to determine, among a 
variety of titles, which of them is entitled to a prefer- 
ence over the others. 

The consideration of these nice and puzzling ques- 
tions in the science of ethics has given rise in modern 
times to a particular department of it, distinguished by 
the title of casuistry. 

3. When the ends at which our duty prompts us to 
aim are to be accomplished by means which require 
choice and deliberation. 

Even if the whole of virtue consisted in following 
steadily one principle of action, still reason would be 
necessary to direct us to the means. The truth is, na- 
ture only recommends certain ends, leaving to ourselves 
the selection of the most efficient means by which these 
ends may be obtained. Thus all moralists, whatever 
may be their particular system, agree in this, that it is 
one of the chief branches of our duty to promote to 
the utmost of our power the happiness of that society 
of which we are members ; but the most ardent zeal 
for the attainment of this object can be of no avail, 
unless reason be employed both in ascertaining what 
are the real constituents of social and political happi- 
ness, and by what means this happiness may be most 
effectually advanced and secured. 

It is owing to the last of these considerations that 
the study of happiness, both private and public, becomes 
an important part of the science of ethics. Indeed, 
without this study, the best dispositions of the heart 
whether relating to ourselves or to others, may be in a 
great measure useless. 

The subject of happiness, so far as relates to the indi- 
vidual, has been already considered. The great extent 



OFFICE OF REASON. 435 

and difficulty of those inquiries which have for thei* 
object to ascertain what constitutes the happiness of a 
community, and by what means it may be most effect- 
ually promoted, make it necessary to separate them 
from the other questions of ethics, and to form them 
into a distinct branch of the science. 

It is not, however, in this respect alone that politics is 
connected with the other branches of moral philosophy. 
The provisions which Nature has made for the intellec- 
tual and moral progress of the species all suppose the 
existence of the political union ; and the particular 
form which this union happens in the case of ahy com- 
munity to assume, determines many of the most im- 
portant circumstances in the character of the people, 
and many of those opinions and habits which affect the 
happiness of private life. 

These observations, which represent politics as a 
branch of moral philosophy, have been sanctioned by 
the opinions of all those authors, both in ancient and 
modern times, by whom either the one or the other has 
been cultivated with much success. Among the for- 
mer it is sufficient to mention the names of Plato and 
Aristotle, both of whom, but more especially the latter, 
have left us works on the general principles of policy 
and government, which may be read with the highest 
advantage at the present day. As to Socrates, his 
studies seem to have been chiefly directed to inculcate 
the duties of private life ; and yet, in the beautiful enu- 
meration which Xenophon has given of his favorite 
pursuits, the science of politics is expressly mentioned 
as an important branch of the philosophy of human na- 
ture. " As for himself, man, and what related to man, 
were the only subjects on which he chose to employ 
himself. To this purpose, all his inquiries and conver- 
sations turned on what was pious, what impious ; 
what honorable, what base ; what just, what unjust ; 
what wisdom, what folly ; what courage, what coward- 
ice; what a state or political community; what the 
character of a statesman or a politician ; what a govern- 
ment of men, what the character of one equal to sucb 



4?S NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

a government. It was on these and other matters ol 
the same kind that he used to discourse, in which sub- 
jects those who were knowing he used to esteem men 
of honor and goodness, and those who were ignorant, 
to be no better than the basest of slaves." * 



APPENDIX TO BOOK IV. 

Since the publication of Mr. Stewart's work, two 
theories on the nature of virtue have appeared and at- 
tracted considerable notice in England and this coun- 
try; one by Sir James Mackintosh, and the other by 
Jouffroy. A succinct account of each will be given in 
this Appendix.f 

Section I. 

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S THEORY OF MORALS. 

I. His Distinction betiveen the Theory of Moral Sen- 
timents and the Criterion of Morality.] Mackintosh 
has, with great propriety, insisted upon the importance 
of a distinction of two parts of moral philosophy which 

* Memor., Lib. I. Cap. I. 

[By reason, in this chapter, we are to understand the discursive reason, or 
reasoning. We have seen that Mr. Stewart, after Price, is disposed to re- 
fer the origin of moral distinctions to the intuitive reason. — Ed.] 

t The first is taken from Dr. Whewell's Preface to his edition of Mack- 
intosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy ; the second from 
Jouffroy himself, mostly from the twenty-ninth and thirtieth Lectures oi 
his Cours de Droit Naturel, being part of the third volume, published since 
his death, and not yet translated into English. His criticism of other the- 
ories is taken from the twenty-second Lecture. 

The object of this work does not lead me to notice German speculations 
on ethics not yet naturalized amongst us. Those who wish to pursue the 
study in that direction must read Kant, Grundlegung znr Metaphysik der 
Sitten; and Critik der praktischen Vernunft. (Most of Kant's ethical writ- 
ings have been translated into English by J. W. Semple, under the till* - 
of The Metaphysic of Ethics.) Schleiermacher, Entwurf eines Systems def 
Sittenlehre. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophic des Rechts. — Ed. 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSHES THEORY. 437 

are often confounded ; — the theory of moral sentiments, 
and the criterion of morality. The question of the in- 
dependent existence and character of the moral faculty- 
belongs to the former division of the subject; the con- 
struction of our system of ethics flows from the latter. 
There is no necessary collision between doctrines on 
these two points. We may hold that morality is an 
original quality of actions, and may still form our rules 
of morality by tracing the consequences of actions. 

This distinction has often been neglected. Those 
who hold that utility constitutes morality often call up- 
on the advocates of a moral sense to show how the as- 
sertion of such a faculty leads us to distinguish right 
from wrong, or how it can supersede the criterion of 
general utility. To this it may be replied, that the ex- 
istence of a moral conscience in man is an important 
truth, but that this truth alone cannot be expected to 
replace all the principles and deductions by which a 
sound system of philosophical ethics is to be produced ; 
that the construction of such a system is undoubtedly 
a difficult problem, but that we shall inevitably obtain 
an erroneous solution of the problem, if we do not 
take into our account the operation of the moral facul- 
ty. The criterion of utility cannot safely be applied 
without acknowledging the independent value of mo- 
rality, any more than the moral faculty can always 
decide well without the consideration of consequences. 
For among the most important results of actions, we 
must include their effect upon the moral habits and 
feelings of men ; and must consider these effects as 
claiming attention for their own sake. The promotion 
of human virtue must be our aim, as well as the aug- 
mentation of human happiness. We cannot by any 
analysis exclude the former of these ends; happiness 
depends on the exercise of the virtuous affections, far 
more clearly than virtue depends on the pursuit of 
lappiness. The most wise and moderate of the utili- 
tarian moralists do, accordingly, apply their method in 
this manner. Thus Paley, in estimating the guilt of 
corrupting a person to the commission of one offence, 
37* 



438 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

states it as one ground of condemnation, that such se- 
duction is the destruction of the person's moral princi- 
ple.* And it appears, at present, to be generally al- 
lowed, that the utilitarian doctrine cannot be applied 
without considering the effect on the moral feelings of 
men as among the important consequences of action. 
" It often happens," it is said, " that an essential part 
of the morality or immorality of an action, or a rule 
of action, consists in its influence on the agent's own 
mind." " Many actions, moreover, produce effects on 
the characters of other persons besides the agents." 
The effects here spoken of are, in fact, effects on the 
moral habits of thought ; and thus the existence of the 
moral attributes of the mind, as original and indepen- 
dent objects of the attention of the ethical philosopher, 
is presupposed in this mode of applying the utilitarian 
scheme. 

If, indeed, we take such good and bad consequences 
into the account, — if, among the useful effects of ac- 
tions, we conceive the most useful to be the improve- 
ment of man's moral character, — if we frame our rules 
so that they shall conduce as much as possible to virtu- 
ous feeling as well as to beneficial action, to purity of 
heart as well as to rectitude of conduct, — if we aim at 
man's general well-being, and not merely at his gratifica- 
tion, — I know not what moralist would object to a crite- 
rion of morality so drawn from consequences, or would 
deny that the promotion of human happiness, and that of 
human virtue, require the same practical rules. Mack- 
intosh would undoubtedly have assented to this ; for 
he not only allows the universal coincidence of virtue 
with utility in the largest sense, but founds his recom- 
mendation of the highest forms of virtue on the advan- 
tage of virtuous habits and feelings, both to the pos- 
sessor and to the community ; as when he speaks of 
the trite example of Regulus, of the character of An- 
drew Fletcher, and of the virtue of courage.f If we 

* Moral Philosophy, Book III. Part III. Chap. III. 
t See the extract from him oa the followers of Bentham in this vol« 
ume. 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S THEORY. 439 

could take into due account the whole value of right 
principles, and the whole happiness produced by vir- 
tuous feelings, we could commit no practical error in 
making the advantageous consequences of actions the* 
measure of their morality. 

But this can happen only by considering moral good 
as a primary object, valuable for its own sake; not by 
supposing that virtue is aimed at, as subservient to 
some other purpose of more genuine utility: and no 
sagacity or fairness in estimating useful consequences 
can stand as a substitute for the love of right itself. 
It is true that honesty is the best policy ; but he who 
is honest only out of policy does not come up even 
to the vulgar notion of a virtuous man. If a man 
were tempted by the opportunity of gaining a large 
estate through a safe but fraudulent proceeding, the 
utilitarian doctrine would seem to recommend him to 
weigh both sides well, though it would direct him 
in conclusion to decide in favor of probity ; but the 
common judgment of mankind would hardly deem 
him honest if he hesitated at all. And in like manner 
in regard to other temptations, the safety of virtue ap- 
pears to consist so little in tracing all possible conse- 
quences, that it has been held that to deliberate is to 
be lost, and that the only secure protection is that 
purity of mind which will not look at the prospect of 
sensual pleasure when it forms one side of the account. 
We cannot help saying, with Cicero, " Ha?c nonne est 
turpe dubitare philosophos, quae ne rustici quidem 
dubitent ? " * 

Indeed, it appears to be acknowledged by the ad- 
vocates of the rule of utility, that it is not safe to 
apply the principle separately in each particular case. 
Mr. Bentham has urged, with great beauty of expres- 
sion,! the propriety of framing general rules, and con- 
forming our practice invariably to these, so as to avoid 
the temptations of our frailty and passion in particular 

* De Off., Lib. III. 19. " Is it not base for philosophers to doubt where 
even peasants do not hesitate ? " 
t DtonloUxjij, Part II. Chap. I. 



440 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

instances. If a reverence for general maxims of mo- 
rality, and a constant reference to the common precepts 
of virtue, take the place, in the utilitarian's mind, of the 
direct application of his principle, there will remain 
little difference between him and the believer in origi- 
nal moral distinctions ; for the practical rules of the 
two will rarely differ, and in both systems the rules 
will be the moral guides of thought and conduct. 

But though the two schools agree so far, there still 
will be found a deficiency on the part of the consistent 
utilitarian. A persuasion that moral good is some- 
thing different from, and superior to, mere pleasure, is 
requisite to give to our preference of it that tone of 
enthusiasm and affection which belongs to virtuous 
feeling. To approve a rule as right, is different from 
liking it as profitable ; to admire an act of virtuous 
self-devotion as we are capable of admiring, is a feel- 
ing so different from the apprehension of any useful- 
ness the act may have, that the comparison of the two 
things is altogether incongruous. The moral faculty 
converts our perception of the quality of actions into 
an affection of the strongest kind ; nor can we be sat- 
isfied with any account of our moral sentiments which 
excludes this feature in the process. Thus, as we hold 
the affections to be motives of an order superior to the 
desires which have reference to ourselves only, we 
maintain the moral faculty, the conscience, the affec- 
tion towards duty, to be a principle of action of an 
order superior both to the desires and to the other affec- 
tions. Without the acknowledgment of this subor- 
dination, the language and feelings of men when they 
compare the claims of personal pleasure, of social af- 
fection, and of duty, are altogether unintelligible and 
absurd. 

II. He refers the Formation of our Active Principles 
to the Association of Ideas.] I proceed to notice an- 
other principle which enters into Mackintosh's philoso- 
phy, and which, in the way in which he holds it, con- 
stitutes one of his leading peculiarities. He assents, 



441 

in a great measure, to the explanation suggested by 
Hume and Smith, but more fully developed by Hartley, 
of the formation of our passions and affections, and even 
of our sentiments of virtue and duty, by means of the 
association of ideas. 

1. But into this view, as usually understood, he in- 
troduces several modifications; and, in particular, he 
asserts that the effect of such " association " may be 
something very different from the mere juxtaposition 
of the component elements. Thus he says that the 
result may be so entirely a single sentiment, that " the 
originally separate feelings can no longer be disjoined " ; 
and, moreover, that " the compound may have proper- 
ties not to be found in any of its component parts" ; 
as constantly happens, he observes, in material com- 
pounds. 

It is clear that this view of the effect of the " asso- 
ciation of ideas " may give results very different fron' 
those often founded upon that doctrine. If we say 
that gratitude, or compassion, or patriotism, are only 
certain trains of pleasurable associations, we are gen- 
erally understood to assert that we can again resolve 
those feelings into the constituent and associated ele- 
ments ; and that by so doing we may hope to reason 
upon them most philosophically and exactly. But 
Mackintosh's mode of considering these and other emo- 
tions would allow of neither of these inferences. He 
supposes " association " to be employed in the educa- 
tion rather than in the creation of our moral senti- 
ments ; in awakening affections rather than in con- 
necting notions. 

2. The ideas or the feelings which are concerned in 
this process are said to be associated ; but this is, he de- 
clares, a very inadequate word to express the "complete 
combination and fusion " which occur. This associa- 
tion presupposes laws and powers of the mind itself, 
according to which the conjunction produces its results. 
The celebrated comparison of the mind to a sheet of 
white paper is not just, except we consider that there 
may be in the paper itself many circumstances which 



442 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

affect the nature of the writing. A recent writer, how- 
ever, appears to me to have supplied us with a much 
more apt and beautiful comparison. Man's soul at 
first, says Professor Sedgwick, is one unvaried blank, 
till it has received the impressions of external experi- 
ence. " Yet has this blank," he adds, " been already- 
touched by a celestial hand ; and, when plunged in the 
colors which surround it, it takes not its tinge from ac- 
cident, but design, and comes out covered with a glori- 
ous pattern." * This modern image of the mind as a 
prepared blank is well adapted to occupy a permanent 
place in opposition to the ancient sheet of white paper. 

3. Not only the word association, but also the word 
ideas, in the Lockian expression, appears to Mackintosh 
to be un suited to its purpose, since an association takes 
place " of thoughts with emotions, as well as with each 
other." Our author has indeed shown great solicitude 

o bring into clear view that part of our nature which 
he here distinguishes from thought ; — " that other part 
of it, hitherto without any adequate name, which feels, 
and desires, and loves, and hopes, and wills." After 
balancing the various terms which may be used to ex- 
press the aggregate of such feelings, he inclines finally 
to call it the emotive part of man. 

Thus the " association of ideas," according to Mack- 
intosh, would more properly be termed the composition 
of ideas and, emotions. In his view of the composite, 
as losing all trace of apparent composition, the author 
was, in some measure, following Hartley, though he 
justly claims the credit of seeing more distinctly than 
his predecessors the important truth, that the com- 
pound may have properties not found in any of its 
component parts. 

4. Mackintosh maintains that this is by no means a 
modification of the selfish system; for the "affections 
and the moral sentiments, though educed by associa- 
tion, only become what they are when they lose all 
trace of self-regard." " If the affections be acquired^ 

* Discourse on the Studies of the University, p. 54. 



THEORY. 443 

they are justly called natural ; and if their origin be 
personal, their nature may and does become disinter- 
ested." 

III. His Theory of Conscience^ But we must now 
consider another peculiarity of Mackintosh's system : I 
speak of what he names his theory of conscience. 

1. The agreeable or painful sentiment, naturally at- 
tending certain emotions, is transferred, by association 
of ideas, to the volitions and acts which they produce ; 
and thus, in the end, these volitions and acts become 
the immediate objects of our love or repugnance. Ac- 
cording to Mackintosh's theory, the moral faculty con- 
sists of this class of secondary desires and affections 
which have dispositions and volitions for their sole ob- 
ject. This description of our moral sentiments will, he 
conceives, explain their peculiar character and attri- 
butes. He expresses the relation which he wishes to 
ascribe, by saying that the moral sentiments are in 
contact with the will; or, as he further elucidates this, 
" they may and do stand between any other practical 
principle and its object, while it is absolutely impossible 
that any other shall intercept their connection with the 
will." The conscience requires virtuous acts and dis- 
positions to action ; and by such requisition it can 
check and control any desires of external objects ; but 
no desire of any outward gratification can prevent the 
conscience from demanding a virtuous direction of the 
will ; and this mental relation explains and justifies, 
Mackintosh conceives, that attribution of supremacy 
and command to the conscience on which moral writers 
have often insisted.* 



* In his remarks on Butler he says : — " The truth seems to he, that the 
moral sentiments, in their mature state, are a class of feelings which have nc 
other object but the mental dispositions leading to voluntary action, and the vol- 
untary actions which flow from these dispositions. We are pleased with some 
dispositions and actions, and displeased with others, in ourselves and our 
fellows. We desire to cultivate the dispositions, and to perform '.ne ac- 
tions, which we contemplate with satisfaction. These objects, like all 
those of human appetite or desire, are sought for their own sake. The 
peculiarity of these desires is, that their gratification requires the use of no 



444 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

2. Thus conscience consists in, or rather results from, 
the composition of all those sentiments of which the 
final object is a state of the will, intimately and insep- 
arably blended, and held in a perfect state of solution ; 
and the conscience being thus represented as analogous 
to the desires, it implies, in the same way as other 
desires, a sense of what is grateful, and a faculty of 
dwelling, in thought, on the gratification so obtained. 

3. But if, in order further to develop this theory, it 
be asked what states of the will are thus agreeable to 

means. Nothing (unless it be a volition) is interposed between the desires 
and the voluntary act. It is impossible, therefore, that these passions 
should undergo any change by transfer from the end to the means, as is 
the case with other practical principles. On the other hand, as soon as 
they are fixed on these ends, they cannot regard any further object. When 
another passion prevails over them, the end of the moral faculty is con 
verted into a means of gratification. But volitions and actions are not 
themselves the end, or last object in view, of any other desire or aver- 
sion. Nothing stands between the moral sentiments and their object. 
They are, as it were, in contact with the will. It is this sort of mental 
position, if the expression may be pardoned, that explains, or seems to 
explain, those characteristic properties which true philosophers ascribe to 
them, and which all reflecting men feel to belong to them. Being the 
only desires, aversions, sentiments, or emotions which regard dispositions 
and actions, they necessarily extend to the whole character and conduct. 
Among motives to action, they alone are justly considered as universal. 
They may and do stand between any other practical principle and its ob- 
ject; while it is absolutely impossible that another shall intercept their 
connection with the will. Be it observed, that, though many passions 
prevail over them, no other can act beyond its own appointed and limited 
sphere ; and that the prevalence itself, leaving the natural order undis- 
turbed in any other part of the mind, is perceived to be a disorder, when 
seen in another man, and felt to be so by the mind disordered, when the 
disorder subsides. Conscience may forbid the will to contribute to the 
gratification of a desire. No desire ever forbids will to obey conscience. 

" This result of the peculiar relation of conscience to the will justifies 
those metaphorical expressions which ascribe to it authority and the right 
of universal command. It is immutable ; for, by the law which regulates all 
feelings, it must rest on action, which is its object, and beyond which it 
cannot look; and as it employs no means, it never can be transferred to 
nearer objects, in the way in which he who first desires an object, as a means 
of gratification, may come to seek it as his end. Another remarkable pe- 
culiarity is bestowed on the moral feelings by the nature of their object. 
As the objects of all other desires are outward, the satisfaction of them 
may be frustrated by outward causes. The moral sentiments may always 
be gratified, because voluntary actions and moral dispositions spring from 
within. No external circumstance affects them. Hence their independence. 
As the moral sentiment needs no means, and the desire is instantaneously 
followed by the volition, it seems to be cither that which first suggests the 



445 

the conscience, or, in other words, what, according to 
this system, is the general character of the dispositions 
and actions which we consider good and right, Mack- 
intosh's answer would be, that the conscience, being 
educated and awakened by certain processes of asso- 
ciation, is thus composed of various elements, and finds 
good under various forms; — that the beneficial voli- 
tions are delightful, and that, therefore, they strongly 
attract those affections which regard the will, and thus 
give rise to some of the elements of conscience;* — 



relation between command and obedience, or at least that which affords the 
simplest instance of it. It is therefore with the most rigorous precision, 
that authority and universality are ascribed to them. Their only unfor- 
tunate property is their too frequent weakness ; but it is apparent that it is 
from that circumstance alone that their failure arises. Thus considered, 
the language of Butler concerning conscience, that, " had it strength as it 
has right, it would govern the Avorld," which may seem to be only an effu- 
sion of generous feeling, proves to be a just statement of the nature and 
action of the highest of human faculties. The union of universality, im- 
mutability, and independence with direct action on the will, which dis- 
tinguishes the moral sense from every other part of our practical nature, 
renders it scarcely metaphorical language to ascribe to it unbounded sov- 
ereignty and awful authority over the whole of the world within, — shows 
that attributes, well denoted by terms significant of command and control, 
are, in fact, inseparable from it, or rather constitute its very essence, — 
justifies those ancient moralists who represent it as alone securing, if not 
forming, the moral liberty of man ; and finally, when religion rises from 
its roots in virtuous feeling, it clothes conscience Avith the sublime charac- 
ter of representing the Divine purity and majesty in the human soul. Its 
title is not. impaired by any number of defeats ; for eveiw defeat necessarily 
disposes the disinterested and dispassionate by-stander to wish that its 
force were strengthened : and though it may be doubted whether, consist- 
ently with the present constitution of human nature, it could be so invigo- 
rated as to be the only motive to action, yet every such by-stander rejoices 
at all accessions to its force, and would own that man becomes happier, 
more excellent, more estimable, more venerable, in proportion as con- 
science acquires a power of banishing malevolent passions, of strongly 
curbing all the private appetites, of influencing and guiding the benevo- 
lent affections themselves." 

* To illustrate this more fully, Ave cite Avhat he says in his " General 
Remarks " : — " When the social affections are thus formed, they are nat- 
urally folloAved in every instance by the will to do whatever can promote 
their object. Compassion excites a A r oluntary determination to do Avhat- 
ever relieves the person pitied. The like process must occur in every case 
of gratitude, generosity, and affection. Nothing so uniformly follows the 
kind disposition as the act of will, because it is the only means by which 
the bene\ r olent desire can be gratified. The result of what Brown justly 
calls ' a finer analysis ' shows the mental contiguity of the affection to 
the volition to be much closer than apDears on a coarser examination of 

38 



446 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

that our anger against those who disappoint our wish 
for the happiness of others, when in like manner de- 
tached from persons and transferred to dispositions, 
becomes a sense of justice, another element of con- 
science; — that courage, energy, decision, when tamed 
by the society of the affections, and considered as dis- 
positions only, become magnanimity, and gratify the 
moral sense ; — and that even those habits which main- 
ly affect our own good, as temperance, prudence, when 
they become disposition and not calculation, are, for 
like reasons, added to the constituents of conscience. 

4. Thus the view of the nature of conscience here 
presented explains how it is that the private desires 
and the social affections alike fall under the authority 
of the moral faculty. The explanation of this com- 
munity of rule in sentiments of so widely different 
nature, Mackintosh considers a strong confirmation of 
the justice of his opinion. 

IV. Inferences deduced from this Theory.] Without 
pronouncing a judgment on the truth of this theory, I 



this part of our nature. No wonder, then, that the strongest association, 
the most active power of reciprocal suggestion, should subsist between 
them. As all the affections are delightful, so the volitions, voluntary acts 
which are the only means of their gratification, become agreeable objects 
of contemplation to the mind. The habitual disposition to perform them 
is felt in ourselves, and observed in others, with satisfaction. As these feel- 
ings become more lively, the absence of them may be viewed in ourselves 
with a pain, in others with an alienation, capable of indefinite increase. 
They become entirely independent sentiments ; still, however, receiving 
constant supplies of nourishment from their parent affections, which, in 
well-balanced minds, reciprocally strengthen each other; unlike the un- 
kind passions, which are constantly engaged in the most angry conflicts 
of civil war. In this state, we desire to experience these beneficent voli- 
tions, to cultivate a disposition towards them, and to do every correspond- 
ent voluntary act. They are for their own sake the objects of desire. 
They thus constitute a large portion of those emotions, desires, and affec- 
tions, which regard certain dispositions of the mind and determinations of 
the will as their sole and ultimate end. These are what are called the 
moral sense, the moral sentiments, or best, though most simply, by the 
ancient name of Conscience ; which has the merit, in our language, of be- 
ing applied to no other purpose, which peculiai-ly marks the strong work- 
ing of these feelings on conduct, and which, from its solemn and sacred 
character, is well adapted to denote the venerable authority of the highest 
principle of human nature." 



447 

hope I have faithfully represented the author's meaning. 
But he draws from the theory certain inferences, of 
which I may say a few words. 

1. Mackintosh, as we have seen, maintains that, 
though the moral faculty is formed or educed by inter- 
course with the external world, it is a law of our na- 
ture ; yet he allows that what this law prescribes agrees 
with the rule, rightly understood, of bringing forth the 
greatest happiness. He was, therefore, naturally caded 
upon to account for this coincidence. If moral ap- 
proval be a different sentiment from the estimation of 
general happiness, why does the moral sense of man 
invariably approve that which increases the happiness 
of his species ? If this theory account for this phe- 
nomenon, such a circumstance will, he conceives, be a 
strong argument in its favor. 

He replies to this inquiry, that all the separate ob- 
jects which conscience approves, the social affections, 
the decisions of justice, the maxims of enlightened pru- 
dence, tend to the happiness of some part of the species, 
and that thus the general rules of conscience must 
agree with the rules of the general happiness. All the 
act* which the moral faculty sanctions promote the 
welfare of some part of mankind, and all that reason 
has to do is to add up the items of the account. All 
the principles of which conscience is composed con- 
verge towards the happiness of man ; and therefore 
this may be taken as its central point. And thus the 
coincidence just noticed is not accidental, but is a ne- 
cessary consequence of the theory. 

I will add, as a corollary to what Mackintosh has 
said, that a system of ethics, rightly constructed on the 
principle of promoting, in the greatest degree, the hap- 
piness of mankind, will coincide, in most of its rules 
of action, with a system founded on the supreme au- 
thority of conscience ; but that, in order to apply safely 
and well the eudemonist principle, we must recollect 
that happiness consists rather in habits of the mind 
than in outward gratifications, and is to be sought 
rather by forming moral dispositions than by prescrib- 



448 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

ing acts. In Paley's Moral Philosophy, we have a work 
framed on the eudemonist basis, which has for some 
time possessed considerable authority in this country, 
and has probably in no small degree influenced men's 
reasonings on such subjects in recent times. Without 
examining here how far Paley has always applied his 
principle under due conditions, and traced his conse- 
quences with a sufficiently enlarged survey, we may 
observe that there prevails through the work a tone of 
practical sagacity, good sense, and good feeling, which 
neutralizes most of its theoretical defects. 

2. Some other bearings of Mackintosh's theory may 
be noticed, and especially the view it offers of the re- 
lation of religion and morality. This agrees nearly 
with the doctrine of Butler, and many English divines, 
that conscience is one of the ways in which the com- 
mands of God are conveyed to us. " The complete- 
ness and rigor acquired by conscience, when all its dic- 
tates are revered as the commands of a perfectly good 
and wise Being, are so obvious, that they cannot be 
questioned by any reasonable man, however wide his 
incredulity may be. It is thus that conscience can add 
the warmth of an affection to the inflexibility of princi- 
ple and habit." Not only are we bound to accept all 
the precepts for the moral government of the will, dis- 
closed either by revelation or by reason, as undeniable 
rules for our feelings and actions ; but the relations be- 
tween man and his Maker which religion teaches us 
tend to make this a work of love, no less than of duty, 
and bestow on that improvement of our inward nature 
to which conscience is constantly urging us an aspect 
of hope and joy, which human morality, without such 
aid, can hardly assume, and seldom long retain. 

3. I will only refer to one other consequence of this 
theory of conscience of Mackintosh ; — the view it ap- 
pears to him to supply of the celebrated question of 
free will. Since conscience contemplates those dispo- 
sitions only which depend on the will, it excludes all 
consideration of the cause in which the will originated: 
hence the voluntary dispositions appear as the first link 



449 

of the chain; and, in the eye of conscience, will is the 
independent cause of action. Reason, on the other 
hand, must consider occurrences as bound together by 
the connection of cause and effect, and thus sees only 
the strength of the necessitarian system. Thus, while 
speculation appears to show that our actions are neces- 
sary, practice convinces us that they are free. The ad- 
vocates of necessity and of free will look at the ques- 
tion from different points of view; — that of the un- 
derstanding and that of the conscience. But the con- 
scientious view, being strengthened by the moral sym- 
pathy of mankind, is by far the most generally and 
strongly entertained. 



Section II. 



I. His Criticism of other Theories.] Observation at- 
tests, and reason conceives, that every human action 
must have a motive and an end. In seeking to deter- 
mine what are the distinct ends of human action, we 
find that they may be reduced to three: first, the pecu- 
liar object of some one natural desire; secondly, the 
complete satisfaction of our whole nature, or the pleas- 
ure which accompanies this satisfaction ; thirdly, that 
which is good in itself. We find, also, that all the dis- 
tinct motives of human action may be reduced to three, 
which correspond to these three ends : first, some natu- 
ral instinct; secondly, a desire of secondary formation, 
which we call self-love, or the desire of happiness; 
thirdly, obligation. From these arise three simple 
forms of determination, not to speak of those mixed 
forms which result from the different possible combina- 
tions of these three ends and motives. 

This being premised, we apply the name of good to 
the following things : — 

1. The objects of the different instincts of our na- 
ture, — such as food, riches, power, glory, esteem, friend- 
ship, — each of which we call good. Good, in this first 
38* 



450 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

acceptation, signifies whatever is fitted to satisfy some 
desire ; so that there are as many varieties of good as 
there are desires. 

2. The greatest satisfaction of our nature ; which is, 
in other words, either its greatest good or its greatest 
happiness, according as we consider its satisfaction in 
itself, or the consequence of this, which is pleasure. 
Here, the word good represents no longer the object of 
a desire and its satisfaction, but the greatest satisfac- 
tion of all our desires. Different persons may under- 
stand this good in their own way, but each has the 
idea of such a good. 

3. Good in itself. By good, in this last acceptation, 
we mean, not that which is good in reference to our- 
selves, but that which is good independently of our- 
selves and of every human being, — good in itself, and 
absolutely. There can be but one such good as this, 
although there may be as many kinds of good of the 
second class as there are beings, and as many of the 
first as there are desires in individuals. 

4. The conformity of the voluntary action of a free 
and intelligent being to absolute good. The word 
good, in this last acceptation, represents that quality of 
the conduct of intelligent and free individuals which 
makes it conformable to absolute good. This is vir- 
tue, morality, moral good. 

Such are the facts, at least as they appear to me. 
Ethical systems become false by misconceiving or mu- 
tilating these facts more or less. The system that 
mutilates them the most is the selfish system ; for it 
entirely effaces the distinctions just pointed out, and 
reduces all these facts to one, — a voluntary and deter- 
mined pursuit of personal good. The instinctive or 
sentimental system is less at variance with the truth. 
It recognizes two ends and two motives, — the end 
and motive of instinct, and the end and motive of 
self-love ; — but, in all else, it misconceives the reality. 
The system maintained by Price and Stewart comes 
much nearer to the truth. This recognizes three mo 
tives and three ends ; but it gives a false description 



jouffroy's theory. 451 

of the third, and alters its nature by overlooking the 
distinction between absolute good and moral good. It 
confounds these two facts, which, though united, are 
distinct, and forms of them a single fact, that retains 
the qualities of neither the one nor the other exclu- 
sively, and thus, by blending them, mutilates both. 

According to Price and Stewart, the idea of good is 
only an idea of a quality in actions recognized by intui- 
tive reason; so that, beyond actions, there is nothing 
that is good, and, if there were no actions, good would 
cease to be. 

In my opinion, this is true only of moral good. 1 
grant the idea of moral good is the idea of a certain 
quality in actions, — a quality which really exists in 
them, and which my reason discovers. If there were 
no actions, this quality, and consequently moral good, 
would have no existence. The idea alone would exist, 
and this would be the idea of a possible quality of 
possible actions. But, in my opinion, moral good, or 
this particular quality, is not an intrinsic attribute ol 
certain actions, as a round form is of certain bodies. 
It is, on the contrary, a relation existing between ac- 
tions and an end, namely, absolute good; these ac- 
tions may or may not tend to this end, by relation to 
which they are good when they tend towards it, and 
bad when they do not. This end is good in itself; it 
is the. only absolute good, and whatever else is good 
derives this character merely from being related to it. 
This end is the reality which the word good represents ; 
the idea of it is perfectly equivalent to the idea of good, 
and, in fact, these two ideas are identical. 

In what way, according to my view, is good per- 
ceived? The process is as follows: As good and evil, 
in conduct and actions, depend upon their conformity 
or their nonconformity to absolute good, it is evident 
that, for me, they have no such character, unless I have 
attained to the idea of this absolute good. It is on 
the occasion of actions, to be sure, that this idea of 
good is conceived, and the conception may be more or 
less clear in my mind ; but, clear or obscure, this idea 



452 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

must still precede any judgment as to particular ac- 
tions. Thus, in my system, moral conceptions must 
necessarily originate in the idea of good in itself. 

II. His Account of the Origin of our Ideas of Abso- 
lute Good and of Moral Obligation.] The solution of 
the moral problem is found in certain self-evident truths, 
conceived a priori by the reason, the immediate conse- 
quence of which is a clear definition of good, and this 
supplies us with a precise method for determining in 
what it consists for every possible being. What the 
truths are, and how they lead to this double conse- 
quence, I am going briefly to indicate. 

The first of these truths is the principle, that every 
being has an end ; it has all the evidence, all the uni- 
versality, all the necessity, of the principle of causality, 
and our reason is as unable to conceive of an excep- 
tion to one as to the other. It has, also, the fecundity ; 
for, having penetrated into our intelligence, it gives 
birth to other truths contained impliedly in it, and 
these cast on the end of things the same light which 
the truths emanating from the principle of causality 
cast on their origin. 

Indeed, if it is true that every being has an end, then 
it is true that I have one, that you have one, that there 
is no created being which has not one. Now in cast- 
ing our eyes over the world, or over that part of it with 
which we are acquainted, we perceive that, if all beings 
have an end, this end is not uniform for all ; for, as far 
as our observation extends, each class of beings de- 
velops itself in its own way, and aspires to an end 
peculiar to itself. As soon, therefore, as we have con- 
ceived that every being has an end, we gather from ex- 
perience another truth, namely, that this end differs in 
different beings, each being having an end peculiar to 
itself. 

And this second discovery is not slow to introduce a 
third, namely, that a relation exists between the end of 
each being and its nature, the diversity or peculiarity 
in the end corresponding to the diversity or peculiarity 



jouffroy's theory, 453 

in the nature. Clearly, if each being has its appro- 
priate end, it must have received an organization 
adapted to this end, and apt to attain it. It would be 
a contradiction to suppose an end to be imposed on a 
being whose nature did not contain the means of re- 
alizing it. Experience teaches us that no such contra- 
diction exists in creation ; it shows us everywhere the 
nature of beings in harmony with their destination, 
and a perfect parallelism between diversity of natures 
and that of ends ; so that this third truth, that the end 
of each being- is conformed to its nature, is invested in 
our intelligence with the same guaranties of universali 
ty as the other two. 

By its light you perceive the method for determining 
what the true end of any being is. Though the end of 
beings is a pure conception, invisible to the observer, 
their nature is a reality which we can analyze and in- 
vestigate ; and, as the nature of every being is adapted 
to its end, we can find in the first a revelation of the 
second. There is, then, a way for discovering the 
destiny of beings, — namely, by the study of their na- 
ture ; whenever the latter is possible, the former can be 
determined. 

To these truths are soon added two others, which 
equal, in evidence and reach, the first. If each being has 
its end, then creation itself which embraces all beings^ 
has one. Creation, it is true, cannot be comprehended 
by us in its totality ; we can take in only a fragment 
of it, and this fragment we know in a moment only of 
its duration. The work of God fills space and dura- 
tion, while all that we can directly seize pertains to 
but a point in one, and a moment in the other. Still, 
though in finite, and to endure for ever, the same prin- 
ciple applies to it, assuring our reason invincibly that 
it has an end. 

Moreover, this truth is revealed to us in connection 
with the preceding truths, and all together generate still 
another. If creation has an end, if each being has its 
own end, and if creation is nothing but the assemblage 
of all beings, it follows that the relation which exists 



454 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

between the whole and its parts must also exist be* 
tween the end of the whole and the end of each of the 
parts of the whole. The end of each being is, there- 
fore, an element of the end of creation. The end of 
creation is only the resultant of the particular ends uf 
all the beings that people and compose the universe, 
while these, in their turn, are only the diverse means 
which concur in the accomplishment of the total and 
supreme end. This last conception is not less evident 
or less necessary than the rest, flowing, like them, from 
the absolute principle that every thing has an end. By 
an invincible relation, it attributes the end of all possi- 
ble beings to a consequence of the creation, and forms 
out of all these scattered ends an harmonious whole, 
the concurrence of which aspires to a single aim, — 
that, even, which God proposed to himself, when he 
allowed the universe to escape from his hands. 

This is not all. Other ideas and truths issue from 
this principle, that all has an end. The next which I 
shall signalize is the idea of order. The idea of order 
is, indeed, but an emanation, a natural and inevitable 
consequence of the idea of an end. If creation has 
an end, and if this end is nothing but the resultant 
of the particular ends of the beings which compose it, 
then the life of creation is nothing else but its move- 
ment towards this supreme end, and the movement 
itself, in its turn, may be resolved into the several 
movements of all created beings towards their respec- 
tive ends. From the accomplishment of all particular 
ends, — accomplishment which is effected simultane- 
ously in all points of space, and successively in all mo- 
ments of duration, by the harmonious concurrence of all 
beings, executing, each in its sphere and at its hour, the 
part with which it has been charged, — results evidently 
the universal life, or the accomplishment of the total 
end of creation. Now this universal and eternal move- 
ment of each thing towards the end which God has as- 
signed to it, and of all things towards the supreme, sin 
gle, and definitive end of creation, — this movement, 
evidently regular, since it has an aim, is precisely what 



jouffroy's theory. 455 

we call order. The only difference between the end of 
creation and universal order is, that the end is the aim, 
while the order is the regular movement of all in ac- 
cordance with this aim. 

Thus far nothing has been said of morality. The 
conceptions just announced to you are only speculative 
truths, which reveal to our reason what is, without 
teaching it what ought to be done. Such, however, is 
their nature, that, when they have appeared in our in 
telligence, the idea of what is good, and consequently 
of what ought to be done, necessarily follows. It is 
impossible for our reason not to pass from this idea 
of an end to the idea of good in itself, and from the 
idea of order to that of moral good. If there exist in 
the world intelligent and free beings, these beings re- 
semble all others in having an end which has been as- 
signed them, and a nature fitted to that end ; in other 
terms, like all other beings, they are fragments of crea- 
tion, and their end is an element of the absolute end 
of things. At the same time, they differ from other 
creatures, by being endowed with intelligence and lib- 
erty ; — a difference which produces in them special 
and peculiar phenomena. Being intelligent, it is given 
them to comprehend this world of which they make 
part ; to conceive that it has an end, that all beings 
have one, and that the end of each being is an element 
of the end of all. Being free, it is also given them to 
realize voluntarily this end, of which they have formed 
a conception, and thus to concur in the accomplish- 
ment of the absolute end of things, and contribute 
their part to the absolute order, that is to say, to the 
universal movement of all things towards an end. 
Now that which has been given to these privileged 
beings to do, — to these beings endowed by exception 
with intelligence and liberty, — is precisely what they 
ou^ht, what they are required, what they are obliged, 
to do. 

To the eye of reason there is a perfect, absolute, ne- 
cessary equation between the idea of end and the idea 
of good. If it is true that the world has an end, it is 



456 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

equally so that this end is absolute good. If it is true 
that each being has a special end, then it is true that 
the good proper to this being is this end. Again, if it 
is true that between the end of each being and the end 
of all there is a correlation, so that the end of each be- 
ing is only an element of the end of all, then it is true 
that the good of each being is an element of absolute 
good, and that thus the end of each being has the same 
nature and the same value as absolute good itself. 
Now to what is the idea of obligation invincibly at- 
tached? To the idea of that which is good in itself 
and absolutely. What we were ignorant of we now 
know ; we have a clear conception of it. Good in 
itself is no other thing than the end of God in creation, 
than the absolute end of things. Henceforth, this end 
appears to us as sacred, and with it all the diverse ends 
which are the elements of it, and among these our own, 
which is one of them. The accomplishment of our 
end, or of our good, with which we are charged by 
being made free and intelligent, and that of the end 
or the good of others in so far as we are able to concur 
in it, — behold our duty, our rule, our legitimate law. 
Here, gentlemen, is morality ; we sought it ; behold it 
found. 

I pretend not to say, that all these conceptions, which 
constitute logically the foundations of morality, are dis- 
tinctly unfolded to all minds. Far from it. All a 
priori conceptions, though absolute and universal in 
themselves, reveal themselves and manifest their au- 
thority and force, in the first instance, in particular ap- 
plications. Afterwards, what is universal and absolute 
in these particular applications is disengaged for some 
minds, and considered and understood by itself in the 
form of necessary and absolute conceptions ; for others 
it is not. A majority do but take the first step ; they 
pronounce a particular course of conduct to be ac- 
cording to their nature ; that is to say, in conformity 
with their end ; that is to say, again, what they were 
made for. What is common to all minds is the habit 
of thus applying these conceptions in particular cases, 



457 

and this supposes that there is something which they 
all feel in common. This something is a confused 
idea, a confused sentiment of order, and of the respect 
which every reasonable being should pay to it. The 
proper and true name of moral good and evil is order 
and disorder. When I do evil, I feel myself at war 
with order. The least developed, the most darkened 
consciences, have this sentiment, as well as the most 
enlightened. When I do evil, I feel myself out of 
order, in hostility with order; when I do good, I feel 
myself in harmony with order; that is to say, in har- 
mony with the absolute and common law of creation. 
I am " in the ways of God," as the Scriptures say ; for 
the ways of God are his designs, the laws that govern 
the universe and lead it to its end. 

III. His View of the Destiny of Man.] According to 
a preceding formula, we are to determine what a man's 
destiny is by the study of his nature ; what he was made 
for, by considering how he is made. Now by obser- 
vation we discover that there are in man instincts, ten- 
dencies, desires, by which his nature expresses itself 
and reveals itself primitively, and as long as it lives in 
this world. He also has faculties, that is, instruments, 
answering to his desires and tendencies, and evidently 
intended to be the means of satisfying these desires 
and tendencies. Again, he possesses a faculty of com- 
prehension, the function of which is to enlighten him 
respecting th*» objects of his desires, and also on the 
best way of proceeding in order to satisfy these desires. 
Finally, there is in him a directive force, called the will, 
or the power of self-control, whose office it is, under 
the superior authority of reason and intelligence, or the 
comprehending faculty, to direct his instrumental fac- 
ulties in the best manner for the attainment of the sat- 
isfaction of his nature. 

Such being the constitution of human nature, we see 

that every thing looks to the legitimate, harmonious, 

and complete satisfaction of our whole nature ; that is 

to say, of all its primary and fundamental desires and 

39 



458 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

tendencies. This, therefore, speaking absolutely, is its 
destiny, its end. 

Here, however, we encounter a fact of great moment. 
Our condition in this world is such, that not one of the 
desires and tendencies of our nature is ever completely 
satisfied on earth, either in the individual, or in the race 
considered collectively. Take curiosity, for example, 
or the desire or tendency to know, — its complete satis- 
faction would be absolute knowledge ; or sympathy, — 
its complete satisfaction would be the perfect union 
and harmony of all beings : neither of which is ever 
realized in this world. Let no one object that a dif- 
ferent and more perfect organization of society might 
bring about these results. Undoubtedly a different and 
more perfect organization of society would augment 
the sum of the satisfactions of each and of all the 
desires and tendencies of our nature ; still, absolute 
knowledge and a perfect and harmonious union of all 
beings in this world would be impossible. 

From this incontestable fact, two conclusions of the 
highest importance follow. 

In the first place, it follows that the absolute end of 
man, as determined by his nature, is never realized in 
this world, and consequently, that he is not placed here 
for the accomplishment of this end. 

The question respecting the end of man comes up, 
therefore, in another form. What is the end of man 
in this life ? Why is he placed amidst a constitution 
of things where the free and spontaneous development 
of his desires and tendencies is obstructed and hindered, 
— where nature around him is not in harmony wich 
his own nature, making his existence here a perpetual 
struggle, a perpetual conflict ? Here, again, we must 
determine the end by considering the tendency, and 
accordingly we ask, What is the tendency of this con- 
stitution of things, as regards man? Evidently it is 
to call out, exercise, and strengthen his self-directing, 
self-controlling power, his personal power, that which 
makes him to be a person, and not a thing, — capable 
of virtue, capable of cooperating with God. Suppose 



THEORY. 459 

we had been placed in a condition in which nothing 
opposed or obstructed the accomplishment of our true 
end; we should have gone to that end passively, if 1 
may use such a term in speaking of an active being. 
We should have been like the main-spring of a watch, 
which, after having been wound up by the hand of its 
owner, goes on gradually unwinding itself, marking the 
hours until night; but the main-spring has no proper 
participation in the effect produced. Whence comes 
it that we elevate ourselves from the humble condition 
of a being which is only a thing to the sublime con- 
dition of a person ? It c'omes from this, that the world 
is made as it is ; fr *m the rigorous law, under which we 
are born, that we make not a single step towards the 
accomplishment of our final destiny but by the sweat 
of our brow. 

The present life, therefore, with all its difficulties and 
obstacles, with all its physical and moral evils, is not 
a mistake or an accident. It has not only been ex- 
plained, but justified ; but the justification brings into 
view a second consequence, equally important, from 
the fact above mentioned. We have seen what the 
true and absolute end of man is ; we have also seen 
that this is not and cannot be accomplished in this 
life: hence we conclude that this life is not all. My 
nature was made what it is. By virtue of its organi- 
zation, I feel desires which have an aim and an end ; 
I have intelligence which comprehends all the reach 
of these desires, and sensibility to suffer pain and 
anguish when they die impotent and without satis- 
faction ; and I also have faculties clothed with power 
to satisfy these desires, even in the face of difficulties 
and obstacles. All this I comprehend in respect to 
my nature. When unhappy in my present condition, 
I explain to myself this condition ; I see the necessity 
and suitableness of it ; — all, however, on an hypothesis 
which my whole nature cries out for. Is this hypothe- 
sis to be regarded as a fanciful chimera ? Impossible ! 
The life to come may be one, or multiple. What we 
feel authorized to affirm, under penalty of condemning 



460 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

to absurdity the universe, the world, the present life, 
God, every thing, is that this life is not all. Another 
life will dawn upon us, in which the accomplishment 
of what we have seen to be man's true and absolute 
destiny will be possible, — will be complete. 



9HE END. 



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